2022-05-03 - The Purple People Eaters

This town used to have a reputation. It's still got a reputation, but there has been some changes; Gray Harbor is no longer known for being the wildest, most sinful port on the West Coast, nor for being the largest lumber port in the world. These days it's known for -- well, for being the end of nowhere next to a couple of nature preserves and a National Park. Cheap real estate and in a couple of decades, as Olympia grows, probably prone to some heavy gentrification. There's not a whole lot going on here besides a glittering casino island that seems to have very little to do with the rest of the town.

'The largest lumber port in the world' is mostly history. There are a few lumber mills still working -- the biggest is Addington-owned, quelle surprise -- but the endless lumberyards have long since been turned into residential areas but for a few. The industrial harbour is still there, and it still does ship, but a substantial number of those old factories and warehouses now sit empty, or have been turned into storage facilities and small companies. It's quiet here, after dark.

Why do people go here, after dark?

There's all kinds of illegal stuff going on here, low key. The lobster fighting ring that everyone knows about, because even the GHPD can't take it seriously enough to do something about it, c'mon, it's guys in flannel shirts, eating lobsters and drinking moonshine. It's a place to meet your dealer, without your neighbours knowing. There's a couple of places to go for secret raves, a few nights a month. A couple of old offices that now offer a few curious sexual services if you know somebody who knows somebody. And there's shipping going on, goods being moved through, to and from Seattle, Olympia, Spokane, Portland. Gray Harbor is not the only small port on the west coast, but it's one where police tends to be distracted.

Funny how this town has the highest annual murder and disappearance rate of the state. Funny how no one seems to care. The FBI seems to have forgotten that the place exists. They called it the 'Port of Missing Men' once. Maybe they still should.

There's a place down by the docks where sometimes, techno music happens. Drug deals, probably. Mostly kids, though, sneaking out to dance and make out, and defy their parents. Sometimes a police patrol breaks it up because that's what police are supposed to do. Often, they don't, because teens gonna teen, and they'll just go somewhere else to get their rocks off. The code this month is 'gonna go hang with Dennis' and it means the same as last year's 'gonna go play some ball with Rob', and last decade's 'LAN party with Mike' and back in the 80s, 'boogie with M.J.' That's Michael Jackson, not marihuana.

At four a.m. in the morning, it's quiet in the parking lot. Most of the kids have gone home. A few lay about, too drunk or too high. Time to load them into taxis and get them home safe because the best way to keep police out of this is to make sure no one reports missing kids. The dealers working for Felix Monaghan know this. There's never much trace of last night's rave or party in the morning, because no one wants to force parents and police to take action.

If you walk past the parking lot at such a time, odds are that strong men will glance at you, decide that you're not a threat, and ignore you. Don't stop to look at them or take pictures, don't force them to not ignore you. Just keep right on walking, and life goes on.

Not so this morning. These men, carrying unconscious bodies out of the warehouse -- //Johnson & Sons, Plumbing Services 24/7/365// -- haven't gotten the memo about not attracting attention.

There's a chubby man talking to a muscular guy with a crew cut. A lean figure in a track suit is smoking a cigarette and watching while a tall man talks on his phone; the words aren't in English. A tall guy in a fur coat and cowboy hat holds a shotgun rested in the crook of his arm. All of this? Not so bizarre; these could be thugs working for one or other of Monaghan's underbosses -- Cochrane, probably, the security company owner. A lot of people in Gray Harbor will tell you -- in quiet -- that if you own an upscale home, hire Cochrane Security; it's the best insurance you can get, against burglary. The burglars, you see, work for Cochrane. Not that anyone can prove that in a courtroom.

Five, six bodies -- teenagers, from the looks of them -- lie in the parking lot. Dead? Probably just sleeping it off. Maybe just too high to be arsed to move. What draws the attention of late night wanderers is the men, standing around them. Two androgynous men (probably men) in identical jumpsuits -- one cyan, the other pink. A man in a three-piece suit and a top hat, looking like stepped out of a Fred Astaire movie. Those three don't blend in at all, and the idea that Paul Cochrane would hire somebody that absurd looking is, well, absurd.

A good rule of thumb in this town is that if you want to enlist the Veil's aid in making things look inconspicuous, look inconspicuous. Flamboyant, loud, and out of place tends to be -- well, the Veil not getting it quite right.

Oontz, oontz, oontz goes the bass. Somebody inside forgot to turn the music down.

4am is too early for a morning jog, but when insomnia hits it tends to do so with a vengeance, and the only way through it is, well through it. Exercise is good for that: spend long enough pounding the pavement and maybe your head will clear. Maybe your muscles will tighten-- and loosen-- in just the right way to make temporary oblivion a possibility. Maybe it'll be enough to stop the day still coming from being a complete write-off.

Mikaere's tall enough, big enough, that picking a somewhat sketchy route for his pre-dawn run is not as catastrophically stupid as it could be-- though it's still not the smartest of moves, surely. Maybe he took a wrong turn somewhere, weaving his way through the dark streets. Maybe his internal spider sense was indeed tingling, drawing him down streets that would never usually be his preference, leading him here.

It hardly matters: in a sweat-stained t-shirt and sweatpants, his long strides slow at the sound of the music, and then, as his eyes adjust, the scene laid out before him: the kids on the ground, the incongruous men. He's still in the shadows, and that deep bass may have covered the sound of his breathing, his footsteps; he pauses, hesitating over the scene.

Approaching-- in sweats, as a brown man, unarmed and without backup-- would be suicidal, if this is anywhere near as dubious as it seems. The smart money would be on walking away.

For now, he does neither.

If all the kids still capable of dragging themselves home have left, why is there one still biking his way through the neighborhood?

...But no, that's not a teen. It's Robin, though the mistake would certainly be understandable. Even in his mid-20s, he has a touch of baby face that can be easily mistaken for a high schooler, and the beat up bicycle that he rides around without a helmet probably doesn't help with that impression. As he turns down the street, he stands in the pedals to get momentum going, then cruises some distance to the accompaniment of the clicking of gears.

And why the hell is he passing through /this/ part of town, at this time of night? He's normally a pretty cautious guy, and no fan of wandering around in the dark... But one clue might be the plastic grocery bag hanging from his wrist, containing a smaller paper-wrapped package. There are no real clues to the contents of that package, other than it looks an awful lot like the glaringly nondescript packaging that turns up in the top dresser drawer of many a teen in town. Packages everyone knows can be obtained from one Pothead Pete, who may be pretty harmless but is also a bit of a drama queen when it comes to handing off his particular wares.

Whatever his reasons, as Robin rolls past the parking lot, his eye is drawn by the sound of music, and then captured by the odd sight of bodies on the ground and the strangely dressed men standing over them. Odd time for a costume party... And even that doesn't quite feel right as an explanation. It's distracting enough to nearly run Robin into the curb, but he rescues himself from overbalancing at the last moment by catching a foot on the curb and skittering to a halt.

Nothing to see here! Just a dude and his bike, trying to get home. At 4 in the morning.

Quickly setting himself back to rights, he pushes off the curb and gets going again. He doesn't yet notice the man in sweatpants stopped in the shadows ahead, though no doubt he will before running smack into him.

Drugs are bad, kids. Don't do them. Sometimes you'll end up overdosing and leaving behind a sad, confused teen ghost with nobody to talk to. Then Gabby has to make constant visits down to shady areas and the whole thing becomes a mess. The bonus, of course, is that it's not just sad, teen ghosts down here, but a bunch of cool older ghosts with neat stories of the days way back before the town became more modernized.

But for some reason, none of them seem to be around today. Not even the teen ghost. Which is odd, because usually the Oontz Oontz gets her all excited and she loses the sad for a bit and likes to get her boogie on and shake what she left in the graveyard. Confusion was rippling across Gabby's face as to why everyone was gone until she spotted the goons and the bodies, and the shotgun. That's enough to peek her interest.

As quiet as a mouse, Gabby starts to shift forward, moving closer and using what cover she can find to angle herself until she can see and hear exactly what's going on.

This is absolutely 100% a place of legitimate business, especially at 4 in the morning. At least it is if your business involves dealing with the shady element. Tracking the shady element. Hunting the shady element. Not to say that's why the other duo coming upon this scene are doing here but... well. Given that one of them is big and black and wearing all black at a glance it might just look like there's only one of them, Nicasia, in a leather jacket and work boots, jeans and a black t-shirt. All she's carrying is a flashlight, the small, heavy steel kind that fits comfortably in the palm of her hand and shines bright enough to stun a deer when it comes on. Right now it's off; there's no point in lighting them up while they wander the docks, occasionally stopping when one or the other sees something that might be relevant.

It is Nicasia who spots the goings-on, yonder. It's a lot of activity for 4 AM. It's a lot of unusual activity for any hour of the day and she lifts her chin at it, in case her partner doesn't catch on right quick. It's exactly the sort of thing that would send a professional right on home again but this is too bemusing to quite let go. In fact she double-takes. She turns, like she's going to say something to Myles, and then... cyan and pink jumpsuits? This part hits her hard enough that her head tilts and she turns all the way back around to peer a whole lot more intently at it. From their distance it isn't real clear what is going on. Bodies, shotgun, high crimes and fashion misdemeanors, all of that. But these aren't explanations, only curiosities, and hers is compelled.

And so she makes her way closer too. Quieter now, focused.

Myles has a vape pen wedged in his lips. Its to keep him from grumbling too much. Their only lead on this particular figure bringing them out at four AM has him dour this morning. Puffing on his pen, he's moving with a quiet gait until he feels Nicasia move away from him. He's a few steps away before he turns, and squints.

He's following after her, brows knit squinting, practically glaring at her back as she approaches. Though his attention goes beyond her to the folks she's curious about. There's a curious tilt of his head as he stalks forward. Before his hand is roughly seizing Nicasia's shoulder and tugging her over behind a nearby building, taking advantage of the corner so they can peek out from behind but not be seen walking out in the open.

Myles is opening his phone, and likely in efforts to fend off whatever she has to say about him grabbing her, "That's him." He grunts, his phone is open, the light dimmed as to not give them away as he goes through their pictures. "Kenneth. I remember one of his pictures being a goofy ass track suit. I was gonna make a joke about it but you were gettin' lunch or some shit, I dunno." He holds up his phone so Nicasia can see. The man on the phone and the man in the tracksuit look remarkably similar.

"Kenny, Kenny, Kenny. What th'fuck you doin?" Myles growls to his phone as he leans to peek around the corner at the group. He lets out a heavy sigh. "Fuck. We aint takin' him like this. We're gonna be sittin on this motherfucker for hours. Bet." He sighs. "Fuck."

"Get these fuckers loaded." That's the chubby guy and he's definitely speaking English. "Got to get them out of town quick."

"Relax, man." That's track suit, known to some as Kenneth, bail bond dodger and more than half competent at self defence; it's unclear whether he's into karate, jiu-jitsu, or thai boxing. According to people who know him, he's into anything that will cover his next debt. Some people are always in debt, and always to the wrong people.

"Fuck you," says Chubby. "You read the papers? That ship that burned here last summer. Everyone on it died. You want to die like that, Kenny?"

"Nothing's gonna happen," says Kenneth, with the kind of confidence that keeps landing his profile on the desks of people like Safe Harbor Bail Bonds.

The twins, in their matching if hideous jump suits, shrug and grab a pair of ankles each. Bodies of sleeping or unconscious teenagers are hauled towards the truck. The man with the shotgun watches; he looks like the strong, silent type, the type that knows how to use his weapon.

The guy who's speaking a foreign language finishes his conversation and turns towards the man in the top hat. "Okay, we're good to go. Let's get this lot to the lumber mill." He's got an accent in English; probably born abroad. "Anything happens, you and your boys deal with it. We're just moving the goods. Got it?"

"As always," the man in the top hat replies and twirls his walking stick as if he's about ready to break into a sequence of dance moves. "You worry too much, Dušan. When morning comes you won't even remember what we look like. You get paid, we get the goods, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except those poor sods but what is it you people say about eggs and omelettes?"

He glows, a little. So do the androgynous jumpsuit twins, and the shotgun cowboy.

"Fuck if I know," says the man with the foreign accent whose name is apparently Dušan. "I just work here."

It's one thing to keep to the shadows when there's an 'off' feeling, and something to watch. It's apparently quite a different thing altogether when there are teens being actively hauled into a truck. Mikaere-- nope, still unarmed-- steps out from the shadows. Oh, he's not all that close, but he's still likely at least partly illuminated: visible enough.

"HEY," he calls, just short of a yell: loud enough to be heard, loud enough to carry, though certainly not loud enough to drown out the pounding bass. "What are you doing, man? Let's just let the kids sleep it off, ay? They're fine right here, no need to take 'em anywhere else."

On the scale of zero to monumentally stupid... well, it could be worse: he could charge straight at them, instead of sticking to a distance.

Still.

Robin's attention remains mostly split between the road and what's going on in the nearby parking lot. "Oh shit..." He mutters, as he overhears some of that.

And then Mikaire just comes out of /no/ where. "Shit!" That one is less of a mutter and more of an exclamation as he slams on the brakes and skids to a stop. He's kind of round-eyed as he looks from Mikaire to the top hat and track suit crowd.

He really probably ought to mind his own business. He really, really should. But it's just a bit late for that, now. Impulsively, presumably while folks are distracted by the shouty guy, Robin makes a quick gesture with one hand, as though pulling from up to down, and the truck door slams shut and is held in place.

Myles is poking around the corner of the building, he's in a crouch as he does so. People normally don't look down, easier to be missed if you peek low. He watches for a few moments before there's a quiet grunt. "Fuck." Myles squints, glaring at the commotion. "Some idiot is just rollin' up on them and..." He lets out a quiet sigh. "Demandin' they stop. I guess." Myles raises his shoulders helplessly.

"Aaand-- there's the kid." Continues Myles' quiet commentary, looking flatly at the scene playing out before him. Lifting his hoodie, the taser is pulled from his belt holster. Though he hesitates. "They're gonna start shootin' or usin' powers in a minute." Myles rumbles, low. "Kenny might split. We should maybe get back in the car, case we need to follow."

It seems he for one, isn't interested in just running up and confronting crime.

Myles doesn't need to clarify who the kid is, but Nicasia's curiosity has been roused and she leans around the corner too. It's the only opportunity she ever really has to loom over her partner but that isn't the objective here, she just wants to see. "Well, hell," she murmurs. "I know him." The guy demanding they stop. "Kenny's not going anywhere yet. There's what, eight of them? Two nosy bystanders? Easy odds," and not in the bystanders' favor.

She draws back around the corner and briefly checks the straps on her vest, ensuring it's covering all the bits it's supposed to be covering. "Not sure I like the idea of sitting in the car while they get added to the body pile." At this distance she essentially whispers, but this pair is being a lot quieter than the thug party which is why fragments of their conversation have drifted. Specifically, "Hold up, they're taking 'em to the mill? Didn't Ava say something about avoiding it, about people disappearing there? You know. Hagglefuck." The accompanying shit is almost under her breath, even more so than the rest of this.

It's another moment before she pulls her taser loose from her belt. "You think the cops even bother to respond to calls down here at this hour?"

What in the crapsticks? Really? Guess subtle isn't exactly how those two play things, but Gabby is still surprised as she watches Mikaere and Robin both make themselves large targets against all of those guys, one of them holding a shot gun. This could get ugly fast. There's a little rush as she quickly tosses a shield up around herself incase any of that bad ends up getting aimed in her direction.

Then she's going to start sneaking herself around the back of the group to come up from behind. You can't see her. Jon Cena ain't got nothing on her! Right? Hopefully.

The truck slams shut. This is a loud noise, leaving no one in the vicinity in doubt that something just happened. And simultaneously, there's a tall Kiwi striking an imposing figure, demanding to know what's going on. There's also a kid on a bike but he's not the first thing to draw everybody's eye here.

"Told you," mutters the chubby guy. "This town is fucking cursed."

"Look at this asshole," challenges Track Suit Kenny, demonstrating yet again the kind of stupid confidence that's landed his name on a certain list in the first place.

The man with the crew cut holds up a hand; brass knuckles gleam on it. "Maybe you should just keep on walking, bud." He looks like the sort of man who might have skipped the small talk and gone straight for the punching, except Mikaere is in fact pretty damned tall and burly, and surely he's not stupid enough to pull something like this without cover.

"You heard him, partner." The cowboy with the shot gun doesn't move. His voice is calm, professional. Business-like.

The twins in the matching (if hideous) jump suits drop the ankles and shoulders respectively of the boy whose body they were dragging. They stare at Mikaere. Something about them is snake-like -- cobras, swaying, waiting to strike. Hungry.

The man in the top hat sighs and scans the surroundings with eyes that seem to glow faintly in the dark; a strange, red shade. Does he see the people concealed in the shadows, readying their tasers in case things go south, or the girl sneaking closer like a very sneaky thing? If he does, he says nothing about it. He grasps his walking cane's handle and pulls; turns out that those slender swords inside canes exist outside of movies too (and really, really begs for someone to ask why the fuck someone'd bring a sword to a gun fight, come on, you know you want to).

Dušan with the strange accent sighs. A hand goes into his belt on his back, and out comes a semi-automatic. At least one person here seems to carry the kind of heat you'd expect from whoever's sneaking bodies out of town at 4am on the old harbour. "Just take them both along. On the house."

Myles groans. "So what, we're superheroes now?" He mumbles over his shoulder, glaring out from behind the corner. "We got a job. Not our fault your friend and the kid wanna play hero." Even though he's complaining, even though he's whining, Myles is slowly holstering his taser. His hoodie is moved back and his pistol is drawn instead. A quick examination is done. Ready to fire. Safety is clicked off.

Myles shrugs. "Got a burner on you? Call it in. Worth a fuckin' shot." It may mean they lose their quarry to law enforcement itself but it beats people getting killed even if Myles will act like he's indifferent. Gabby may as well be invisible out there for all Myles is concerned. 2 on 8 are not great odds. 4 on 8 are not great odds.

"Cosplaying motherfucker has a sword in his cane." Myles whispers back to Nicasia. Even though she's over him and likely can see all this now. "Semi-auto." Myles goes forward on his knees, holding up his pistol. He does nothing, just waits and silently whispers his support for Mikaere. "Don't fuck this up you fucking idiot." Go Team Mikaere!

"Maybe you should walk away," says Mikaere, chin held high, though surely-- surely!-- the alarm bells have started really ringing in his head. "You don't want to do this. Kidnapping kids? I don't care how much you're getting paid, that shit's suss as all hell."

He's pitching his voice louder still, now. Robin's exclamation has caught his attention at least in passing, though whether he's aware of anyone else is more difficult to determine-- maybe not. But maybe. He is a mentalist, after all.

Brown eyes track across the visible figures, lingering a moment or two longer on the man in the top hat, with those eyes and that sword, and again on the man with the strange accent-- with the semi-automatic.

He's not completely stupid: there aren't many cars in the parking lot, but he makes some attempt to draw at least alongside one of them, ready to duck for cover if needs be. But let this group of thugs know, he's got his eyes on them.

And more than that.

The problem with sneaking up on this party from behind is that there's already a party behind it and they (well okay some of them) are on high alert.

"Do I have a burner phone..." The eyeroll is audible, coming as Nicasia pulls this loose from a pocket as well. The ol' 911 is keyed in and yes, she'll wait while it rings, taking that moment to tsk softly at Myles. "If anybody in this town could pull off a spandex leotard, it's you. Get you a cape an -- behind."

The last word is hissed out, an abrupt change from lazy banter to a demand for attention, because this is when she spots Gabby skulking through the shadows yonder. Maybe under the circumstances Nicasia can be forgiven for calling her out like she's one of them but it's also maybe not the most comforting thing in the world to watch her peel off the back of the warehouse and lift the taser, even as she still has a phone pressed against her ear. The good news is that her on the fly threat assessment isn't half bad and the younger woman doesn't look at all like she's with the abduction team, so.

This is not good. But there's kids in that truck, and she's lived a good life, right? No. Gabby's life has been a shit show. But that's the saying and she's sticking with it. Sneak sneak. The woman ducks down in place once she has a good line of sight on the truck. A hand reaches down into her bag and starts to pull out a knife. The sheath comes off and with a flicker of her fingers, the blade begins to hover. It starts to move away from her and around the truck, angling so that it doesn't look like it's coming from her direction.

She steadies her hand, then all at once turns her hand towards herself and pulls all of the fingers into a fist. The blade goes hissing through the air and towards one of the tires of the truck.

If she's worried about the sudden noise behind her with Nicassia's voice, there's nothing she can do about it, keeping her concentration for the moment.

Robin does not wait around to find out if he's about to get shot at. The moment the truck door is successfully shut, he shoves his weight into the pedals of the bike and books it for the nearest cover. He skids to a halt behind... something. Perhaps a dumpster! And with that bit of protection, he peeks out and surveys the scene with a deep frown.

Does he consider fleeing for real? There's a distinct possibility. But what he actually does is point a finger at the fellow holding the shotgun, then suddenly clenches a fist and /pulls/.

Not everyone manages to react; this is probably a good thing, all things considered. What does go down -- goes down fast.

Robin pulls at the cowboy's shotgun in the way of the Physicalist (or the Jedi, take your pick). The man does not let go of it easily -- and the shot rings out, accidentally, a substantial part of it landing in the man's own chest. This is fortunately insofar that Robin now possesses a shotgun and the cowboy possesses a bleeding chest wound. Small victories.

Lightning flies from Mikaere's hands; the man in the top hat reels as it impacts with his chest, guided by the lightning rod in his hands.

The man with the crew cut lunges; his brass knuckles connect with Mikaere's chest and the crunch of breaking ribs is sickening. The Kiwi might have managed to dodge if not for the suddenly flurry of movement in pink and cyan; one twin feints as his head, and the other -- the other lands her foot, heel first, in those ribs that already broke.

It's no wonder he passes out. It's a mercy, too.

At least 911 takes calls. There's been occasions -- nightmares, Dreams -- where a phone just kept ringing but no one took the call. A jaded townie might grunt something along the likes of, at least we're still in the same reality as the GHPD. The location of the call is logged automatically, no doubt, even as the responder's "What's the emergency?" breaks Nicasia's cover -- except it doesn't, because it's a small, muted noise drowned out by the sound of buckshot, of flesh impacting flesh, and of flesh impacting the ground.

The hiss of a tire letting go of its air goes largely unnoticed; the truck sinks a little on that wheel, but who's paying attention?

Mikaere is a formidable figure, tall and muscular, and his sudden emergence and confident approach must have triggered something in at least some of the men; maybe it's that they can't quite see the rest. Here's the brute with the crew cut, running towards the fallen Kiwi with less than helpful intent. Here's the pink twin, aiming another kick, and here's Dušan, aiming his firearm in the same direction. Here's even the swordsman in the top hat, running that way. Mikaere must seriously have cramped their style.

The chubby fellow spins; he at least noticed the very sneaky shadow at the truck wheel. He runs towards the woman that so far, only he and Nicasia have really gotten a good look at, switchblade in hand.

The only people standing around looking confused is the cyan twin -- he was just busy kicking the big guy, and then his target fell and who's he going go kick next? -- and Kenneth the bail bond dodger who looks like he's considering maybe dodging some more, run like hell, live to dodge more bail bonds another day.

Yeah, the lightning? That was supposed to do something. It was not supposed to end like this: with Mikaere hitting the ground with a thud, his prone self basically an invitation for further miseries.

RIP, Mikaere: big damn (stupid) (not-really-a-)hero.

That wheezing breath sound? Yeah, that's his lung. That's not supposed to sound like that.

"Jesus. Fuck. Get ready, Nico. I guess we're doing this. Fuck."

His gun is aimed carefully at the man with the semi-automatic. Myles is about to take the shot. Their odds are still really bad. And it won't take much for Myles to become another Mikaere if the whole crew comes rumbling over this way. So a split second thought goes through his head.

And comes out his mouth.

"GHPD, get your hands up and get on the fuckin' ground! Now! On the ground!" Maybe it'll make at least Kenneth hesitate. Maybe.

But there are shots being fired, even if they aren't technically from the ne'er do wells, Myles has no idea. So he aims at the Serbian, and shoots his shot.

"Yeah, I'd like to report a kidnapping and --" Nicasia's report is briefly interrupted by the barrage of noise, by the shotgun blast and the electro-zap, which she catches sight of and raises an eyebrow at. "--probable homicide at the docks. Right around Warehouse..." The general location is given, without any real hope that this will get much help. But look. If you don't even call the cavalry, you can't expect the cavalry to show up. She hangs up right around the time that Mikaere is getting pummeled and winces, hard, but it does seem to settle things.

Then Myles is pretending to be the GHPD and she echoes his, "Jesus," but that cavalry is really really unlikely to show up for this party. Her partner gets his shot off and then she comes fully around the corner of the building and considers for a beat, looking down at the taser in her hand and then the jumpsuit wondertwins that are still pummeling the now-downed guy yonder. He made it look pretty easy. All of it. The lightning part and the falling over bit, but it's the former that she concentrates on, drawing a breath.

A shotgun goes off. "Oh shit." Mikaire goes down. "Oh shit." The baddies seem to start piling toward Mikaire. "Shit, shit, shit..."

Robin is having a bad day, but at least it's not as bad as Mikaire's! With a flick of his fingers, he sends the shotgun spiraling out of reach of anyone who might get the bright idea to grab it back. Then, with the same impulsiveness as he used with the truck, he puts his hands out toward Mikaire, forms two fists, and gives a sharp tug, trying to pull him out of the range of the attackers. "Sorry, my dude..."

Here's hoping Mikaire doesn't have a spinal injury.

The tire hisses, which means that truck probably isn't going anywhere. From Gabby's positioning, it looks like she was going to move on to another tire, but there's a guy starting to come at her, which is a little bit distracting.

"Well shit," gets muttered as she shuffles back to put some space in between them. No time to call the knife back to her hand to defend herself, so instead, she'll just call it directly into the guy. Her hand gestures, red aura flaring for a moment as the knife pries from the tire and starts to fly with violent speed towards Chubby's chest.

"I'm going to need you to stay the fuck away from me," she insists.

Lightning flies through the air from a direction no one in the parking lot expected; it leaps from Nicasia to the cyan twin, who's still looking around to find out whether those sods where alone. The sickening crunch and the smell of burned flesh rising from his jumpsuit answers the question: No, Mikaere and Robin are in fact not alone. They got lightning lady backup.

A gunshot crackles; Dušan's semi-automatic spits lead into Mikaere's chest. Blood sprays; the man in the top hat draws his long, thin blade across the man's chest as well. They seem to want to be quite sure the Kiwi is down for the count.

Amazingly, he's still conscious.

Gabby and the chubby thug collide; his knife embeds herself, cutting a vicious line of red across her torso. Her knife flies from the tire to bury itself in his chest; and unlike him, the girl seems to know how to do serious damage (or maybe she just got lucky, but look at that face, and give us the odds). The man falls to the ground, clutching his abdomen, probably trying to convince his innards to stay inside.

Dušan briefly shares the cyan twin's surprise; another gunshot rings out and a bullet grazes is temple, sending him reeling, disoriented. The now shotgun-deprived cowboy runs towards Myles and swings at him with a 'Just go, pardner' -- but a fist is not much use against body armour, and he might as well have punched a wall.

His companion with the crew cut keeps ramming his fists into Mikaere's broken body. The twin in pink does the same, but feet.

It really is a miracle he's still conscious.

It starts to dawn on these people that there's more than one attacker -- and that some of those attackers are yelling about GHPD police. You can see the realisation on the face of at least the crew cut thug -- he pales and turns to attack the girl who just downed his companion. She's lost her knife into the man's chest -- and it's just a girl, he can handle some spindly little thing.

The non-Glowing tend to make that mistake on a regular basis.

The twin in pink decides that she's done enough damage already to the man at her feet. She spins to face the other one -- the guy on the bike, whoever he is, time to rearrange his face. She's joined by the man in the top hat who readies his sword cane for another swing.

Where are the police sirens when you need them?

Not here yet, that's where. At least the professionals present will guesstimate at least a few minutes -- for the emergency responder to parse that someone's yelling about police instead of having a conversation, to enter the GPS data, to send a patrol car --

-- The show's probably over when they get here. And the real issue is, whose bodies will they be picking off the curb?

Perhaps its been a very long time since Myles has shot a gun at another human. Perhaps it's because there's just a moment where his eyes go wide and flash sidelong at his ex-wife shooting lightning from her hands. The shot goes off, but the man doesn't go down. "Fuck." Myles hisses and the next moment there's a literal cowboy in his face. The attack isn't enough to hurt the big guy, not with the kevlar under his hoodie, but it's enough to have the man stumbling back, the pair of them locked in a physical melee that prevents him from just bringing his gun around and shooting the fella point-blank.

He tries to bring the gun around but gets caught in that weird tussle point when someone is very close to you and arms and legs get in the way of everything. But. Myles is better up close anyways. Probably.

Using his body weight to slam into the cowboy to create just a little distance, his palm flies up into the cowboy's chest. Where all that blood is coming from, right before he twists to hurl his whole body into the man to give him a hell of a shoulder check in an attempt to drive him down to the ground. In the midst of this his eyes are flicking over to Nicasia first. Before the rest of the... battlefield.

"Okay, Leeroy, hang in there," Robin mutters as he scowls with concentration, trying to get the man moved out of the way before he gets absolutely smashed. A little too late, he realizes he has made a bit of a target of himself. (A bit?)

He stumbles back a step, but takes his eye off Mikaire long enough to wave his hands, bringing the shotgun swinging wildly around to point at Top Hat. Somehow, he still has that grocery bag of drugs(?) swinging from his wrist with every motion.

Nicasia, who just shot lightning out of her hands, arcing it across the parking lot and frying the goon in the cyan jumpsuit. Yes. She looks briefly baffled by this little turn of events. Stunned by it, as it were; her eyes go wide as her target shudders and crackles and she loses a few seconds of initiative staring down at her fingers, but the dilation of time is corrected by the cowboy rolling toward them and she takes an instinctive step back. They tussle, Myles and the not-so-Colorado Kid and she watches for a moment or two before blinking. Somewhere inside of that she asks, "You got this?"

Which this she's referring to is maybe clear, or else is crystalline to him.

Either way she takes another deep breath and steps around them both, lifting her hands again. There are a lot of targets of opportunity, but apparently she can't resist the bookend effect because her next crackle of energy is aimed at the other twin.

Mikaere is not, despite appearances, dead. He's not even unconscious-- or maybe, not fully unconscious, certainly not for more than a moment. He probably wishes he was: add a bullet wound and a blade wound not to mention more blunt force trauma to the damage already done, and really the only possible conclusion is a massive, fuck off ouch.

He doesn't move. Most of what energy he has left is focused on continuing to breath, and also not screaming. He kind of fails at the latter, though: he screams, and what a scream it is. Low, animalistic; utterly unrestrained. And with it? He's probably not even conscious of doing it: reaching out for the nearest consciousnesses, and thrusting his pain directly at them.

Hopefully there's no friendly fire involved.

Chubby does not, indeed, stay the fuck away from her. Because of this, Gabby now has a stupid gash would across her chest. "Man, you're going to make the old lady worry." Now she looks pissed. Before Chubby can collapse on her knife, it's yanked out of his torso and into the air, all drippy with red and innards. good luck keeping those inside now, jerk.

That's about when she notices that she's not really hidden anymore. "Crap." Gabby starts to duck back behind the truck to use if for cover as best she can.

Using the truck's side mirror, she's guiding the blade again. Going for Mr. Long range weapon with the pistol. Hello Serbian dude. Once again that blade goes sailing with incredible force.

Lightning crackles; the twin in the pink suitcase goes through a brief spiritual experience during which she finds herself mentally aligned with a chicken wing in a microwave; everything is suddenly very hot and her skin is starting to smell delicious. She flails at Robin but the kick is nowhere close to connecting with its intended target.

Gabby dives for cover behind the truck; no eagerness to join Mikaere in making a stationery target there, it seems -- and she's attracted far too much attention as it is. Kenneth the bond bail dodger lands a fist in passing -- does she even notice? Her knife sails through the air like a guided missile, to be deflected at the very last moment by the very firearm that Dušan is waving in front of his own face, trying to decide where to use it. The thug with the crew cut attempts to land one on the fragile woman too, but the haymaker goes wide -- he too is distracted by flying guided missile knife, like, what the fuck.

The gentleman in the top hat swings his cane sword and it clangs loudly as it connects with the bike between himself and the more slender man. Whether a miscalculation on the Fred Astaire impersonator's behalf or a deliberate attempt to scare Robin off is hard to say. The man's expression remains calm, much in the fashion of someone who's just going through the motions without much personal investment.

It's enough of a blow, though, to disrupt Robin's concentration -- the shotgun does not get to fire.

Myles' fist connects soundly with the cowboy's chest; his sharp intake of air and his groan speaks volumes about how much that hurts, when you've already managed to take a side of buckshot. The sheep's wool of his coat is taking on a pinkish tint. The blow he tries to land back is ineffective; a helpless grab at a tac vest, achieving nothing much but a bit of discomfort.

Dušan stares; his head whips from the shotgun that's obviously being aimed at him, to the place out there in the dark from whence lightning is flying. His brain tries hard to compute; to make a risk assessment, to respond.

He was probably not hired for his smarts. In the end, he decides to point the semi-automatic at the already prone Mikaere and yell, "Stand down or the brown guy gets it!"

On the ground, Mikaere's eyes haven't opened. His face is still entirely untouched (everyone's attracted to that broad chest, apparently, despite him clearly having one of those faces), but... opening eyes is definitely not on the cards. Neither is moving. He's conscious, but the ground is-- well, about all he can manage right now.

But he's evidently not entirely lost in those waves of pain (the screams? Yes, they're still coming, just to add an extra note of creepy to the pre-dawn air).

The brown guy?

That's you, dumbass.

Fuck this hurts. You think?

Think they're going to save you? Or is this the end?

Eh. Fifty-fifty, maybe.

So?

Yeah.

It's probably the last thing he's got in him, this attempt: if he were a praying man, it's what he'd be doing right now. His fingers, clutched at his sides, fingernails digging into his palms as he attempts to control the pain enough to respond, slowly begin to uncurl, to stretch out.

If he's very lucky, he's got something left in him to defend himself with.

Is it any surprise the shotgun doesn't go off? Magic or not, you still need some idea of how to fire a gun, and Robin has most definitely never touched one before, much less tried to fire one. He gives a loud yelp as the sword clangs against his poor bicycle, and stumbles backwards a couple of steps, just in time for a kick to whiff right where he was a moment previous.

With a sudden and intense interest in the guy who is /literally swinging a sword at him/, he releases the handlebar of the bike and renews his focus on the shotgun. This time, he doesn't try anything so fancy as shooting someone. Shotguns are club shaped right? So he forms two fists and with a sharp gesture, tries to bring the shotgun flying at Top Hat.

You got this?

There's a scowl sent to Nicasia's back that she won't see. She's too busy kicking ass with lightning from her hands. But the Cowboy is dropped. "'m good." The cowboy falls to his feet, Myles quickly stepping over to bring his gun back up, right in time to hear the threat from the Serbian. He's aiming his pistol at the man's head, again--

"Webber, take the fucking flank. Webber take it now!"

Myles' shoulder is caught on the archway of the ramshackle building, a little rug the only thing acting as a door. His rifle's still jammed. His sidearm is drawn in a hurry, no time to slow down. He bursts through what must be the kitchen. It's sweltering hot. He can barely see. It's loud there's popping off weapons in the next building over. He's in the living room now, there's a man pointing a rifle down at the hostages. Screaming in a language Myles still can't understand. Myles can't breathe.

His sidearm is aimed...

Myles exhales and takes the shot.

Nicasia is only slightly less amazed that this next crackle of electricity drops the other goon, but under the circumstances she is surely as amped up on adrenaline as she is charged by whatever invisible unmentionable power is fueling it. She scarcely registers that her second target has also dropped to the ground in a twitching, smoking pile: there's liable to be some static still charging her up, some ozone in the air around her, but she steps forward, staying well out of her partner's line of sight. Unware of that little bit of drama.

Not so much so what's going on on the primary battlefield, where Dušan still hasn't gotten the message but might when she isn't standing entirely in the shadows. "Naw, motherfucker. Look around, do the math; drop your gun or we're gonna drop you." Because at the end of the day someone has to give them a chance to do the right thing and give them a chance to surrender so that someone can be alive to answer a couple of questions and Kenny isn't gonna know a single useful bit of information, now, is he? "All of you. On the ground."

Iit's not all bluff, though. Not all smoke and mirrors, as she draws in another breath, curls her fingers and takes aim again. She's still holding the taser, which is both convenient and comical since it isn't - and won't - do a damned thing in this scenario. What might, however, is the whip of her attention to the guy with the canesword, the last opponant standing who seems to have so much as a flicker of the spark that makes a handful of people so interesting, and if he so much as lifts his weapon again he's getting zorched.

There is way too much heat on her. Gabby doesn't like odds where more than one person is attacking her at a time. But she absolutely loathes cowards that point guns at people who have no means of defending themselves. "Oh, go fuck your own face!" she growls out in that Brooklyn accent before red crackles around her again. The energy flairs just as the gunshot and electricity go off. Does the Serbian even have a head as she takes a hold of his belt and jeans with her telekinesis? Lifting him full body from the ground and flinging him full force into the two of his buddies that have been attacking her.

"Fuck each other's faces!" she yells at full volume.

If there's an exploded head, that's going to be super gross. That's a lot of brain matter.

The man in the top hat glances around; perhaps the idea occurs to him that this battle is really going remarkably not well for his team. Maybe he's even considering turning tail -- or giving up. The world will never know, because in the next instant lightning crackles through the air and takes him clean in the chest, as if the sword cane somehow acted as a lightning conductor. He's still in the process of falling backwards when the shotgun, still suspended in the air, hits him like a tennis racket from the other side.

He's going to nap now.

Track Suit Kenny shows his best and kindest side, solving problems the only way he knows how -- by punching somebody. His crew cut companion chimes in, thumping away on a woman half his size because for some reason, hitting somebody small always makes things better. Somebody, being Gabby, probably does not appreciate their efforts very much.

Dušan hangs, suspended in the air by the very seat of his pants, very visibly disbelieving his whole situation. A simple heist, they said. Just get the kids in the truck. Look, we're sending some goons down to help keeping things smooth, they said. They look a little funny but they know their jobs, they said. And where is Dušan now?

That's right. Hanging in the air by his literal pants until suddenly he's no longer hanging but flying -- right into the two thugs beating on Gabby. He tumbles through the air, into his mates -- and then suddenly, hot lead knocks him sideways into the ground -- where more lightning awaits.

Dušan is not going to be conscious to complain. He's also going to nap now.

Two of the teenage abductors remain; the man with the crew cut and the brass knuckles and Kenneth, the bail bond bailer.

They look at each other.

The man with the crew cut turns on his heel as if to run.

Kenneth, true to his nature, sticks a leg out and trips him up -- before trying to make a run for it himself. He probably hopes that restraining the other man will buy him time to escape. This is what he does very well after all: Run away.

It's hard to tell if Mikaere is even aware of what's going on around him; of what has happened to the man in the top hat, not to mention the Serbian with the semi-automatic: those eyes still haven't opened, though the screaming has mostly stopped.

'Mostly', because that doesn't mean he doesn't let out the occasional moan through gritted teeth-- which at least suggests he's still conscious down there, which means, really, he's doing better than pretty much all the bad guys in this fight.

Don't mind him. He's just going to stay where he is, and try not to bleed out.

With Top Hat knocked out, Robin stands for a moment panting for breath, hands still clenched into fists as he stares at the prone body. "What the absolute..." His stunned gaze wanders away, searching for the source of all these lightning strikes that he has been only dimly aware of, while focused pretty hard on not getting smushed. He eventually spots Nicasia and Myles, a couple of familiar faces among the chaos. The shotgun abruptly drops to the ground with a loud clatter, and he starts to lift his hand to get their attention, but that causes him to do a bit of a double take at his hand. Which has developed a pretty odd, black veiny pattern running up his arms. Worst tattoo ever.

He shakes off the shock, ignores that bit of weirdness, and waves his arm. "Nicasia! We need an ambulance or something over here!" With that bit of information shared (as though she couldn't have seen that for herself), he rushes over to Mikaire and drops to his knees. "Okay, my dude, hang on. Um. Blood. Right. First aid... Pressure! We're supposed to put pressure on it..."

The Serbian goes down. It's not a head shot. Perhaps thankfully. But the man goes down. Myles is immediately looking over towards Kenneth.

"Kenny..." Myles calls out at first, like a warning. Before the man takes off. Dislodged pieces of Iraq still ringing through his head, he starts sprinting after the man in the track suit. Sprinting across the parking lot, Myles reaches up and squints, gesturing towards Kenneth. He squints harder. Can't--- Fuck.

He'll holster his pistol, that'll make it easier (and safer) to run. That's what he'll do.

Myles moves quickly, while putting his gun at his hip. But it doesn't stay. The pistol sticking to his hand... His brows go high, his eyes go wide. He tries again. Nope. Kenneth is getting away as Myles' is slowly losing the plot and becoming invested more in this new side story of a large black man at a crime scene who can't put a gun down....

Myles runs after Kenneth with renewed vigor, but this time it's not to chase Kenneth, it's just to get. the. fuck. out. of here.

It all happens so fast. Nicasia tries to give them a chance to surrender, and then bodies are flying and lightning is crackling and the shotgun discharge is like the accompanying thunder ripping the air and Kenny makes a run for it and Myles goes off after him and people are laying there bleeding and... she...

...looks over at the guy in the tophat and finally realizes that he's got smoke? steam? coming out through the holes in his body and finally maybe figures out why the air smells like it does. The color sort've drains out of her, leaving her looking slightly greenish in the bad lighting but she doesn't take off after her partner. Her hands come up to scrub at her face a couple of times and she takes a couple of very, very deep breaths, which isn't going to help her case much but it is what it is.

Then she moves again, not to run away but to come closer to the mess they've made. "Pressure," she agrees with Robin. "You might, um, want to take your shirt off. Use that, plug any holes." That's all she's got. That and her taser and her cell phone. The one gets put away, the other gets pulled out again and... well. It's completely fried, but she already called 911 earlier, preemptively, and if that didn't summon the cops and possibly an ambulance a second call won't do any better, right? It's only another moment before she spots Gabby again and eyes her. There's not a lot of recognition, exactly, but there is a, "You okay?"

Flying badguys is a sight to see. Gabby would enjoy it more if she hadn't just taken a blow to the chest that feels like a couple of her rips just popped. The noise that came out of her when that fist hit was pure pain, body doubling forward as she drops to a knee and hisses for breath through her teeth. Oh shit that hurts.

A hand is held up in a 'just a moment' gesture towards Nicasia as the woman asks how she is, green eyes darting after Myles and Kenneth as the slippery man tries to make his escape. Her face twists into anger as that glow around her brightens again. The hand not clutching around her stomach moves, fingers making a quick gesture. Let's see if she can tie those laces nice and tight around those ankles and then draaaaag him across the ground nice and fast by them, right back to her.

She has some face punching to do.

Mikaere needs an ambulance. Of this Robin and Nicasia have no doubts. Somehow -- amazingly, even -- he seems to have managed to keep his arteries intact. That, or Kiwis are plated with stainless steel on the inside. Applying pressure still seems like a very good idea -- the more blood stays on the inside the better, and those ribs are already broken. Amazingly, none of them appear to have punctured his lungs -- or if they have, the damage is minimal enough that the man is not (yet) drowning in his own blood. He's definitely going to need the ICU, but it seems that he might still manage to not need funeral services. Keep him breathing, keep him conscious. Basic first aid.

If Kenneth was a wiser man, this is where he'd have heard somebody shout his name and realised that the game is up. He's just seen things happen that can't happen. Flying shotguns and knives. He's seen improbable things too -- thugs that use a sword cane? What's this, some kind of bizarre Hollywood flick? He's seen the Serbian fly through the air, as if picked up by a giant, invisible hand.

Kenneth's not a wise man. He has one skill in this world, and it's running the hell away from trouble. He hears feet pounding the cement behind him, he glances over his shoulder to see Myles' large frame, and it does not occur to him that Myles too might simply be running away. He runs.

The man with the crew cut is just not going to take the fall-out for somebody else's fuck-up. He knows what happens to people who fuck up these missions. He's got an aunt in Philadelphia, and he's going to stay with her for a while now. He tells himself, he's clear, just keep right on running, don't look back -- and then he looks back and sees that Kenneth is on his feet and then --

-- then there's blue lights and sirens, and nowhere to run because this is an unfamiliar maze of alleys and warehouses and turf that isn't his. He tries to bolt. He finds the path blocked by a tall fence. He tries to climb it. He finds his arse hauled back down and tasered because if there's one thing a cop around here does know, it's that when shit goes down on the old harbour, odds are in favour that tasering first and asking later is the smart choice. You don't need to shine to know that this is a part of town that sees a lot of questionable business.

Kenneth's feet pound pavement; he is a local. He dodges right and down the alley that he knows will take him to the back of another alley where there's an open door, and through that he can cross the old canning factory's yard and get lost in the darkness. Kenneth always knows what way to run; he's proud of it.

That's when his feet are pulled out under him like snakes leaping out of the asphalt and tackling him to the ground. Not only do they trip him up -- they weave their way around his ankles and shins, and pull him back, nails clawing at the concrete. Sneakers are not supposed to act like this. His brain struggles to rationalise what's happening to him; bolas? Some kind of unseen tripping wire? Snakes. They are snakes. His shoes are full of snakes.

This is when the screaming begins.

Another patrol car cuts off access to the alley from behind. An officer barks out, "Everyone, stand still! Hands where I can see 'em! You got a weapon, drop it and hit the ground!"

Uniformed figures emerge. Questions are asked -- barked -- about the unconscious teens in front of the truck, the strangely dressed people who have been beaten or subdued in various ways. An officer does a double take at the sword cane before carefully securing it as evidence. Ambulances are called, for Mikaere, for Gabby, for the rest.

Statements are asked for, from those who are still standing and in a condition to give them. Nicasia, Robin. Kenneth is still screaming; the screaming finally stops when the first responders sedate him before strapping him to a gurney. The man with the crew cut scowls and complies with the officer who cuffs him and locks him into a back seat. He'll definitely be asked to make a statement; and probably doing a considerable amount of time.

None of the police officers shine. None of them seem to quite understand what they're seeing beyond, drugged teenagers being loaded into a truck, strangely dressed weirdoes who have been beaten down before managing to load them, and a number of people who called 911 as good citizens should. One officer gives a little pep talk about vigilantism and why it is a bad idea with a glance to Mikaere as he's loaded into an ambulance. From his tone, though, he's not sorry that somebody handed a can of whoop-ass to wannabe abductors.

All things considered, Mikaere came out of this much better than he should have... though it may take him a few days (/weeks) to really be able to see it that way. Later, days later, when he's managing the fine balance between 'drugged up enough not to hurt' and 'lucid enough to talk but holy shit the pain', he'll have a statement to give, absolutely: "I'm new in town, but I keep hearing rumours about people disappearing. I don't know; I just... saw what was happening, and I had to step in. Stupid, yeah. Maybe. But the kids are okay, and that's the important thing. No one went missing, this time. I had to. Crime's a terrible thing. A great town like this, it's awful that it's getting targeted by these people."

What else did he see? Admittedly, not much. Rueful laugh, there: it's hard to see much from the ground. "They weren't all that smart, were they? But they'd still have gotten away with it, if we hadn't been there. Those poor kids."

Does vigilantism pay? Arguable.

"Oh hell no," comes the possibly unexpected answer to Nicasia's suggestion. But then Robin looks around and realizes that Myles has disappeared and every one else still standing are women. His gaze lands on Top Hat, and he briefly considers how much time might be lost taking /that/ guy's shirt... Then he looks down at Mikaire and all the blood, and gives a little growl. "God dammit..."

The end of that swear is muffled by the fabric of his shirt as he pulls it off over his head, then crumples it up and uses it to apply some pressure. Only Nicasia and eventually the paramedics will be in a position to see the scars slashing across his torso.

As for his statement? There's something to be said for looking young, and he leans into the shocked youth who just witnessed a crime and might be almost incoherent thing. He didn't see anything, he was just trying to get home, Jesus, someone tried to /stab/ him, dude had a shotgun, it was self defense okay, what the hell, no you can't call his parents, they're in Oregon right now, he's twenty-four not some kid, holy Jesus they just hauled off and /shot/ that guy.....

And then there's Nicasia, who is in a kevlar vest and has a taser on her hip, who absolutely puts her hands up when the bubblegum machines finally show up. She tries very hard to concentrate on their colors, not on people who are bleeding out everywhere, or maybe finally not twitching with electric current, and so while Robin gets a little nod of approval when he realizes he's it for the makeshift bandage department she's soon looking at anything else. At what point does she realize Myles took off? Wait, when was the last time she saw Myles?

A series of most unfortunate events.

But it's fine, she has a statement to give, beginning with how she's the skip trace for Safe Harbor Bail Bonds and how she was in fact tracing a skip - Kenny over there - and stumbled into this kidnapping in progress and really just couldn't stand by and watch them pound that poor guy into the pavement and okay maybe she tazed one of the goons is he going to be okay? sure if they want it for evidence whatever thanks for showing up guys she has no idea what would've happened if the GHPD hadn't shown up and wow they made good time and the first badge that mentions her father is just going to get a super vapid smile.