Normally with the mooks unable to hit her, Dottie would be taunting up a storm by now. She's still mainly focused on dealing with this in a way that she can escape without completely losing sight of the mission. Frank's success emboldens her a little, and she kicks at the unafflicted mook's elbow, hoping to disarm him. She will do everything she can to avoid touching the blade itself, however.
The mook's arm numbs as Dottie connects with his elbow. The blade clatters to the floor.
The demon masked man doesn't even react as his blade falls to the floor. He presses the attack, coming at Dottie with a series of rabbit punches.
Frank smiles as his coil wraps the Demon, rendering him defenceless.
"Quit struggling buttercup or I up it to the next level... You Demons ain't to only ones with a shock tactic."
He holds the thug awaiting further instruction...
Lou attempts to open the door to the office, finding it locked. He puts his shoulder to the door, but the door holds. Joe moves into the corner, waiting for Lou to get the door open.
"What are you waiting for? Kill him!" Dottie hisses at Frank. Meanwhile she dons her knife-knucks and lashes out at her opponent.
Dottie slashes, but the man catches her blade on his arm, his jacket apparently resistant to blades.
He counters with a stab at Dottie's mid-section, but by the time he gets there, Dottie has dodged to the side.
The man wrapped in Constrictor's coils continues to resist, reversing his grip on his blade and slashing at the coils. As he makes contact, dark lightning cascades up the coils toward Frank.
:
If Frank can he'll retaliate with his own shock tactics:
:
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Dottie grits her teeth. With no immediate way out, she can feel deep in her gut an urge to panic, and only years of experience helps her tamp that down. She tamps down all else as well--her face goes into that blank fighting expression. There's no Dottie there, just the assassin. With a gutteral shout, she jabs at the mook again, this time focusing on catching him off guard so as to get straight to his unprotected neck--and she succeeds as he begins bleeding.
As the mook topples forward she grabs him and uses his own momentum to pull him toward her till and wraps herself around him, pinning him with arms and legs, while holding the little punch dagger to his already bleeding throat.
Frank can't see it, but underneath the mask, the mook's eyes roll back in his head.
Dottie has her Inner Demon completely under control. Overall, this fight is going well for the two of you.
Lou slams his shoulder into the door again, but it doesn't give even under his bulky frame.
Joe scoffs quietly, but waits for the path to open.
Ignoring Dottie's bloodthirsty cajoling, Frank releases his coil dropping the ID unceremoniously to the floor.
He moves to the exit doors - his coils retracting as he does, then attempts to open the double doors and secure them an exit...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
War Widow maintains her hold on the Inner Demon and digs deeper with the blade attached to her hand.
But the crackling black blade on the floor near her flares and frightens her, and her hand goes weak.
The doors aren't locked, so now that they aren't blocked by masked gang members, there is a clear exit.
The Demon War Widow is holding struggles to reach a machine pistol under his jacket, but she shuts that down easily.
The tension in the room is high, but no one moves to intervene, and Negative seems to be watching to see what happens.
Frank opens the doors, shouting on Lou;
"Lou! Doors are secure! Time to get Mr Manfredi outta here... We'll cover then exit, make sure things go smooth."
He then turns back to face the room and its assembled whose-who of criminal cartels with a hard smile;
Well well. Captive audience...
The Demon alerts Dottie to his ownership of a nice shiny firearm.
She also tries to move toward the door with the mook in tow--always nice to have a meat shield.
The Demon plants himself such that she cannot manipulate him away.
Lou weaves through the melee, kicking open the doors when he reaches them. He signals the SUV and the beasts engine roars to life. Joe catches on to what is happening, but moves more slowly, only managing to catch up to War Widow and her struggling Inner Demon.
Frank shoots Dottie a hard look as he holds position;
"Quit playin' with your food Widow. We got heads to crack..."
Making sure Joe is ahead of her, going through the door , she twists, releases the Demon, and then fires the machine pistol on full spray to keep the Demon from advancing as they retreat out the door.
She makes she Joe is out the door and then immediately follows (even if Frank is still inside), eager to retreat as soon as she possibly can (and possibly a bit salty about being yelled at, because she's a sociopath).
As everyone in the Manfredi entourage exits, Frank is acutely aware he stands alone...
Aw. Shoot...
With a hard look at the remaining crime lords and lackeys he backs slowly up...
"Ladies & Germs - Thanks for the hospitality, but we'll bid you all adieu."
... before exiting and closing them behind him.
Making sure Joe is ahead of her, going through the door , she twists, releases the Demon, and then fires the machine pistol on full spray to keep the Demon from advancing as they retreat out the door.
She makes she Joe is out the door and then immediately follows (even if Frank is still inside), eager to retreat as soon as she possibly can (and possibly a bit salty about being yelled at, because she's a sociopath).
[dice=Attack]1d20+6
Joe and Lou make their way through the doors, Joe a little slower than you would like. A the sight of them, the black SUV that you arrived in roars into view, screeching to a stop at the curb. There are no signs of pursuit from within.
Dottie looks inside the SUV to be sure nothing is amiss there.
If everything seems okay, she follows Joe into the car once it arrives.
Satisfied that no-one is coming, Frank turns and hauls ass towards the waiting SUV!
The four of you pile into the armored SUV. As you slide into your seats, the windows darken to illegal levels of tint. The least of your worries, but sill noticeable. 550 horsepower roar as you speed away from the meeting. Lou and Joe show no obvious signs of their negative reaction to the stress of the meeting, though both are breathing heavily and not paying too much attention to you.
Frank pulls his battle suit mask back with a grimace - his face a sheen of sweat;
"Letting us go means we can expect reprisals... Might need to get to them first..."
The villain-turned covert hero shoots a look towards Dottie;
"You okay Widow?"
Dottie breathes hard--and finally notices the fact that she is. She takes a deep breath and forces herself to slow down.
Her eyes flicker toward Frank, and she gives the slightest of nods, though she is still shaking a little.
She doesn't say anything for a long time focused on calming herself down. It's over. It didn't touch you. It's over. You survived. Just like you did the last time.
Dottie waits to see where they are headed. If Manfredi takes them back to some kind of office or safehouse, or if it looks like they are about to be dropped off somewhere, then as soon as she has an opportunity she looks at Joe and says, "Do you know what that black stuff was?"
Lou slid into the passenger seat, so Dottie is well positioned to question Joe with the three of you crammed into the back. Your query seems to shake him out of a dark reverie. He turns to face Dottie, gazing past her before finally focusing on her face, possibly for the first time. Is the flicker in his faded eyes recognition, anger, fear? It is hard to tell.
"I've seen it before, a long time ago, in Los An-jel-eez. Something this black scientist was experimenting with. He called it Zero Matter..."
Dottie visibly winces. The upside: it wasn't in her head, if he saw it too. The downside: it is that stuff. Or something similar enough.
She is silent for a long moment, deciding whether to lay her cards on the table. It would reveal a weakness. But this whole situation... this whole "mission" she had put herself on. She had been hoping to bust a few heads. Scare the gangsters away from the neighborhoods, or at least force them into doing their own protection racket right. Petty, street stuff. This. This was different. This was people disintegrating into the carpet sort of stuff.
This was the thing Peggy had nearly died a few times trying to stop. And wasn't Dottie really trying to preserve Peggy's legacy?
Morever, she could not do this alone. Or just with a ex-con who was only just figuring out his mission. She may as well let it out now. If Manfredi was a potential, if temporary ally, best to establish that now. If he was a threat--best to know to be rid of him as soon as possible.
"That scientist... the ghost... he came from Isodyne Energy Company. Run in part by a woman named Whitney Frost. Hollywood starlet by day. Darkness-possessed megalomaniac by night." Her eyes slide up and down Joe. "And your girlfriend, yes? I don't remember being formally introduced back in 1947, but I did spend a good 36 hours or so tied up in your basement around that time." She removes the scarf she had around her head that had been concealing her hair, the other around her neck that made the shape of her face look different. "I got caught while doing a favor for a Strategic Scientific Reserve agent, hoping for leniency on my prison sentence. That night... for awhile I was taunted--poorly--by some..." she almost mentions the FBI, but decides not to embarrass ol' Joe by revealing he had once been forced into alliance with the Feds. '... pliers-wielding goon. Masters, I think his name was."
"Then she came in. Choked me with that stuff. I learned I had a soul that night, because I could feel it begin to... to disappear. I have been burned, shot, stabbed at, and dissected. I pulled out my own teeth when I was eight years old. Broken my own fingers to break out of chains." Dottie shakes her head. "Nothing hurt like that woman's touch. Not before or since. 70 years later I remember it like yesterday."
She rolls her eyes at any puzzled faces. "And yes, I am 93 years old. That is hardly the most interesting thing going on right now."
"Anyway, if that 'Negative Man' or whatever has the same capabilities... he can rule all of those families without any problem."
Bereft of his costumed hood Frank is clearly both a little shocked and amazed at Dottie's frank (and crystal clear) retelling of an incident 70 years ago.
Inside he nervously lets out a whistle;
"Sheesh. Your beauty regime's got Jane Fonda's beat... Am I right Lou?"
Frank stretches, nervous of visceral memory being recounted between the "old" timers...
"Guess that explains what got you a little spooked in there... Widow. Not like you at all..."
Which spooks me Dot
"Mr Negative Man. Zero Matter. What we gettin' into here? Was this a legit meet or he gonna unleash that stuff on the other families? Make 'me his puppets?'
Joe's eyebrows try to climb up to meet his receding hair as he takes in Dottie's changing visage. His right hand raises, almost on its own, toward Dottie's face, but he thinks better of it...
"How can this be? That was 70 years...And you're still...How can you be still...I mean I've...but you? Regardless, we can't have another Whitney Frost. Maybe she was a monster, or maybe the Zero Matter turned her into a monster, but we can't have that again. We are going to have to kill this negative son of a b@!$*."
From the front seat, Lou says, "Make sure there is no one on our tail and take us to the loft."
Dottie frowns. "I agree... but is that possible? She wasn't killed, was she? I remember something about her in the papers." The death of Frost's husband had made the news, as had Frost's disappearance from the public sphere. But she didn't remember her being reported dead. "Going mad with grief over her husband that she killed or something..."
She exhales. "The SSR had scared me off after extracting me from your basement. I don't suppose you know how Peg- how they stopped her, do you? What happened to her?"
"I don't know how they stopped her. She never said, and none of those a-gents never said nothing. But I visited her, afterwards. After they took whatever it was out of her. She never got over losing that power. The power to make her way in the world. God, she was a strong woman...But she died only a few years later. In the fifties. '55, I think it was. She just withered after they took the Zero Matter. Straight-jacketed, begging to go back."
Frank rubs his brow as he mulls the discussion;
"The 40s and 50s... 1940s and 50s. Can't believe we're drawing dots that far back..."
He eyes Dottie quizzically;
"You some kind of Kaptain Amerika? Or time traveller like in Quantum Leap?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"The 40s and 50s... 1940s and 50s. Can't believe we're drawing dots that far back..."
"Better than never having seen it before, and being caught by surprise."
"You some kind of Kaptain Amerika? Or time traveller like in Quantum Leap?"
Deadpan: "Yes, I am a time traveller, and I decided to use my powers to come to this utopia."
She rolls her eyes. "Everyone was trying to make supersoldiers in the 30s and 40s. Captain America was only the most successful result." She points to Joe. "I won't ask Mr. Manfredi to reveal his own beauty secrets, but being experimented on, whether willing or as a POW, is likely. A lot of Allied soldiers came back from war camps with odd levels of resilience, in spite of being starving and exhausted." She shakes her head. "And that's when their government wasn't straight up experimenting on them. Mine experimented on me. I was a worthless female orphan good for nothing else in their eyes. Fortunately I survived the experiments and the training program they put me through, and boom." She grins. "I never get sick and I've got great skin." She sighs. "Not as fun as super strength and the ability to survive being frozen for 70 years, but it's something."
Joe laughs a long, dry, laugh that devolves into a dry cough. He draws out his pocket square, covering his mouth in a way that belongs in a different time.
"After what I've seen in the last 70 years, being frozen sounds like a dream. And while this beautiful young woman has me in looks and vitality, I've got her in age, youngsters. I was born in a tenement on Mott St. in December of 1899, just before the turn of the century. Well, the last century. Heh, heh, heh, heh."
Frank flashes a hard grin at Dottie;
"Damn... Quite the history lesson. Sorry to interrupt you old timers trippin' down memory lane, but we thought about what's next? Sit an' wait or get our shot in first?"
"We should move against this Mr. Negative immediately. Whatever he is doing with the Zero Matter, we can't let him gain any more power, and we can't let him consolidate any sort of hold on those people he was meeting with. Lou, get some muscle together..."
Lou draws his phone from his pocket and starts searching his contacts.
"I agree. But hold the testosterone for a second..."
"We can't assume he is easy to kill. He also got that stuff from somewhere that is presumably not easy, given the last time it appeared that we know of was 70 years ago. How did he get it? He's acting now after a long plan. He will have contingencies and backup plans. We fly off half cocked we'll just get... disappeared in that stuff."
"He also had Ivan speaking on his behalf for 'unity.' It was the dragons and the Brotherhood that were fighting for territory in the same place. They were only killing each other a day or so ago. If he already has a yoke on Ivan, then that territory is his. He'd probably then want to consolidate adjacent territory. Who covers what turf around here?"
Lou responds, "It's more horizontal these days than vertical. Geographical Territories overlap depending on activities. The internet and everything. Russians around here focus on extortion and protection rackets. We have numbers and hookers, the triads had drugs around here, but I'm guessing these Shadow Dragons have taken that over."
Frank nods sagely at Lou's overview before dipping in his own thoughts;
"Agree this Mr Negative is likely a slippy customer, but I specialise in puttin' the squeeze on people. Zero Matter = Zero Problemo if I put the coils to work..."
He flashes a hard smile, trying to keep the old coat of bravado on...
Lou responds, "It's more horizontal these days than vertical. Geographical Territories overlap depending on activities. The internet and everything. Russians around here focus on extortion and protection rackets. We have numbers and hookers, the triads had drugs around here, but I'm guessing these Shadow Dragons have taken that over."
"I happened to see them with boxes of something I assumed was drugs. But they were actively trying to extort some of the same places the Russians work, and the Russians killed some of them for it. Now Ivan was speaking for them. Something happened there."
Frank nods sagely at Lou's overview before dipping in his own thoughts;"Agree this Mr Negative is likely a slippy customer, but I specialise in puttin' the squeeze on people. Zero Matter = Zero Problemo if I put the coils to work..."
He flashes a hard smile, trying to keep the old coat of bravado on...
Dottie fixes Frank a hard stare. "I saw you scream in pain when that mook sent his blade's darkness up your 'coil.' You think an old taser suit can counteract stuff that can take you apart cell by cell?"
She sighs. "What would be helpful is what you know about this area, from the perspective of... well, the kind of work that you do. Why here? Why is this the staging point of his plans? What can we take or prevent him from taking that weakens him, makes him sloppy?"
Dottie calls up to Lou. [b]"Don't suppose you can tune into police bands on the radio here? Would be good to hear if anything else has erupted around the baths."
Frank frowns, about to react, then thinks better of it.
I'm Constrictor. Used to mean something. Be someone. Back in the day I could handle this...
Hi jaw clenches and he allows his gaze to wander to the passing streets
Dot's right. That black energy hurt bad... Mr Negative likely can turn folks inside out, and if it scares her, it should scare the s**t out of me.
He clears his throat with a nod and a wry smile;
"Hurummph. Yeah, that weird black stuff messed with old injury that's all, but I hear you Widow. We're outgunned. Pity we didn't have Man-Killer, Tiger Shark or some other heavy hitter on tap. Head back an' break that negative face."
Lou replies, "Look, we are well set here. These newcomers, triads and Russian mafia, they've made some headway here near the shore, but we control almost everything from Bedford-Stuy north to the river. Down here, we run some rackets, but that is about it. The Russians control drugs and girls down here, with the Triads making a move on both of those pieces recently. This is the most unstable area in the city right now, with the possible exception of Chinatown. Harlem is all sewn up, the City leans hard on people working in Mid-Town because of all the tourists. Brooklyn and Queens are the most profitable. Another maggia family controls Queens, so we don't violate that agreement."
"So this is just the best opportunity to get started?" Dottie shrugs.
"So what's the plan? Go back and blow up the bathhouse with everyone still in it?" She seems to propose this as a serious suggestion. "On the other hand, I don't like we got out so easy. The resistance seemed almost token." And yet, she really didn't want to go back.