Drug Bust or Bust!

[Deleted]

What had she gotten herself into this time?

Wargirl was assigned a task. Complete it, and she'd rise to the top of the list of heroes being considered to join Titans East. She spent good money on the boat ticket to get to Jump City, and without hesitation went straight to the wherehouse ware it was going down. Some foreign crime cartel is trying to sell a massive quantity of a new drug to a local gang. She found it hard to believe, but apparently the drug, called SUPR, is very dangerous when ingested by meta-humans, but when ingested by a regular human, grants them super-powers. Every dose of SUPR provides a different superpower for a good couple of hours. On the other hand, it's still a highly addictive narcotic and a hallucinogen, with a chance of lethal overdose. If this deal went through, temporary meta-humans would be practically infesting the streets, a real mess to clean up!

So she found the warehouse, snuck in, and hid behind some crates. She saw a bunch of goons, standing guard. Some from the foreign cartel, others from the gang. All were quite heavily armed. Many, many opened crates containing ziploc bags of SUPR sat off to the side. In the center of it all, the leader of the gang, and some snazzily dressed obvious meta-human. He stood quite tall, with brown, scaly skin and horns. Did he take the drug? Probably not, he'd have to be in a good state of mind for the trade...

Wargirl could not let this deal go through. Out of nowhere, she pulled several blunt weapons, and charged right into the fray. She was sure she'd gotten a bunch, but the remaining guards got their act together and filled her with so many bullet holes that she looked like swiss cheese! Before she knew it, she was on the ground, bleeding out.

She was out of it for who knows how long? As she slipped in and out of partial consciousness, she heard the voices of the criminals.

"Wait come here, she's suddenly breathing again!"
"What should we do?"
"Tie her up."

The sounds of chains

"Shouldn't we kill her? Is that even possible?"
"No, we should see what she knows"

"Quick! Look! She's coming to!"
"What are we going to do if she breaks out!"
"Maybe we should take some SUPR?"
"No! We'll get addicted!"
"Don't be stupid, one dose won't do it"

Wargirl finally opened her eyes. She was sitting in a chair, chained to a post. Looking around, she saw several guards, a bunch wounded and bandaged, the rest still heavily armed and dangerous. The meta-human liason was off at the far end of the room, making conversation with the gang leader, but she couldn't make out what they were saying.

It slowly began to dawn upon her that she messed up, big time. What had she gotten herself into this time indeed.

[Audrey]

"Hey wasn't there like some weird face on that banister when we first came in here?"
"Maybe. Boss probably wiped it off. You know how he hates that kiddy stuff."
"Yeah, you're probably right."

What the guard's had failed to notice was the face they were talking about had actually moved over into the darkness of the warehouse towards where they had placed their bullet-ridden prisoner. As soon as the gang members took their eyes off Wargirl for just a second, a green blur sprung forth from the wall and quickly split the chain holding the chair to the post. The odd face then reappeared on the post. "Continue to pretend like you're chained to the post. By the looks of it you could smash that chair in two easily, but I have a plan and them thinking you're at their mercy is a necessity for it to work," the face whispered to Wargirl remaining ever smiling. "You'll know when you should break out." With that, the green blur vaulted up into the rafters fading in and out of existence as the guard's gazes shifted.

Cheshire had been wary about helping a superhero and all, but one had to strategize. Helping a hero was worth destroying every last drop of the SUPR formula. That stuff getting out could mean a whole lot more work for her, better off to destroy it all here and now and while the opposition was still mundane... Save for the liaison there. She'd have to get in close and figure out what his deal was. She hoped to Buddha it was not thermal vision or things were going to get awkward when he noticed a bright orange body creeping around in the upper parts of the building. She noticed the pallet of SUPR over in the corner and briefly felt her bad to make sure the satchel charges she got ahold to take care of that stuff were still there. She'd need a distraction before she could do that though. Programming the charges would mean she couldn't remain invisible. Would get a little bad if they suddenly saw a short little Vietnamese girl programming a bomb on their precious cargo.

[Deleted]

"Pretend like you're still chained up" she said. "You could smash that chair in two" she said. Those chains were actually layered pretty thick but she wasn't about to tell her that. Probably wants to swipe the glory from her. Who was she, anyways? She didn't see much more than her mask...

She wiggled her arms a bit. Yup, those chains are done smashed up real good. Probably shouldn't break out, just like the mystery mask said. Her impulsiveness IS what led her into this mess, after all! Okay fine. Play it cool.

"You DO know what will happen if that drug reaches the streets, right? Chaos. Everywhere. Banks being robbed, nobody will be safe!" They probably knew this already, but hey, it's a distraction.

An angry looking gangster walked up to her and smacked her across the head. As a side effect of her regeneration powers, she didn't really feel extreme pain, but a slap to the face would sting just as much for her as it would for anyone.

"You ing cape! My best bud's arm is broken because of you!" Another slap. The gang leader's attention was raised. He started to walk over.
"That's eno--" he was beginning to say, but Wargirl interrupted. She immediately put on her fakest sob face and said.

"Okay okay! I'll tell you everything, just please, don't slap me again!"

The gang leader and his cohort looked at each other in confusion.

"Errr... Okay, how about you start by telling us how found out about this?"

"I-I was just patrolling nearby, I swear! Heard some people talking!" Ugh. Hopefully this mystery person would follow through. Can't really take much more of this faux grovelling. She'd give her, 4, 5 minutes tops before she breaks out and starts clubbing heads again.

[Audrey]

Seeing the superhero give her an opening, Cheshire swooped down from the upper banisters as soon as the leader turned his head. Working as quietly as she could, she pulled two satchel charges from her bag. (Courtesy of the Brotherhood of Evil. She has snagged some toys on her way out the door.) With them out, she slid down low enough that the pallet would hide her from anyone looking from across the room. She strapped one satchel to the side of the pallet and began pressing the various keys to prime the explosives. Finishing up, she set the bomb to detonate on command. Seeing she had remained out of sight from the goons, she crawled on all fours to the other pallet of SUPR and began prepping the other charge to that pallet.

Unlike others, Cheshire was smart enough not to do the whole 'Put it on a timer' nonsense when it came to explosives. The various bits of chance involved in such an operation were simply too great as a whole to make for an intelligent move. Instead she had linked up the satchels to a coded trigger on her wrist. It made sure that even if her opposition could somehow get the detonator off her wrist, they'd have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of guessing the combination. These bombs were not going off until she was good and ready for them to go off.

With the second charge set and primed, Jade turned to get back up onto the upper parts of the ceiling but was met with the ugly face of the meta human liaison. "Having a little fun with our toys there miss?" he asked looking right into the green eyes of her mask.
"Fun is hardly the word I'd choose," she answered as the meta picked her up by the neck and carried her out to the center of the room with everyone else.
"Seems we've got ourselves a meddlin' puddy cat here," the meta human announced, holding out Cheshire for the group to see.
"Hey, ain't that that Cheshire Cat chick from the Brotherhood of Evil? Wha's she doin' tryin' to stop us?"
"I don't know, but she's laid some pretty slick Brotherhood weapons on our goods, so let's not be letting her get too hasty," the metahuman responded before tearing the detonator from Cheshire's wrist and preparing to smash it in his hand.
"I wouldn't do that. A severed connection will trigger the bombs as well and then we're all dead," Cheshire interrupted with a coy smile creeping out from under her mask.
"And I should believe you why?"
"You really want to take that chance?"
"... You win for now puddy cat," the metahuman scowled before tossing the detonator to a random thug and commanding him to put it in the cash safe.
"I should probably mentioned a code is required to disarm the bombs as well, and looking at your staff, I don't think any of them are confident enough explosives technicians to play 'Do I cut the Red, Blue, or Green wire?'" Cheshire mused at the metahuman's chagrin.
"Seems we have another prisoner then,"

[Deleted]

The gang leader seemed to have run out of good questions to ask.

"Okay, uh, how'd you get your powers?"

But at that moment, Wargirl heard scuffling coming from the other room. Was that her cue? She figured it'd be something more obvious. Ah well, anything to ditch these guys. Immediately stifling her fake tears, Wargirl looked up

"That's a story for another time, bud!"

She threw her feet up in the air, kicking the gang leader in the face and throwing the broken chains into the air. His cohort prepared to fire, but his gun was instantly cleaved in half by a short blade. The gangster looked down at his gun, then at the tall, four armed girl in a battle-ready pose, and said "Y-You--" before being interrupted by a paintball shot to the groin. Wargirl let out a little giggle at her own sadism before conjuring a few pistols, loaded with rubber bullets.

She calmly made her way to the other room, where she found her mystery helper in a sticky wicket of her own. Surrounded on all sides, and held up in the air by the large, imposing meta-human criminal. This Mystery Mask girl did give Wargirl some bad vibes, but an ally is an ally! "Leave her alone!" She took one crack shot hitting the meta-human straight in the temple, but to little effect. Just managed to grab his attention at best. Still holding Mystery Mask up in the air, he turned to his goons and barked out a "Don't let her escape!"

Of course, it wasn't going to go as badly for her this time. Wargirl immediately leaped into action. She took a few potshots with her pistols to slow them down, then discarded all of her weapons and jumped behind cover before they could return fire.

[Deleted]

Meanwhile, as the action unfolded in the warehouse, Hiro Okamura, codename Toyman, was walking down the warehouse district. Shopping for good facilities was hard-work, and he'd been at it for a good chunk of the day, now, which didn't exactly help his mood. The only thing that kept him going at this point was the knowledge that building robots in his shuttle's parking space was a bad idea, the need for secrecy too great.

When he heard the first volley of gunfire, he had been picking his nose, and didn't pay much attention to it, figuring he'd heard wrong. When a few minutes later the sound of gunfire did an extended encore, he guessed something was afoot in the stereotypically crime-ridden background that the district provided.

Toyman burnt sole rubber to make his way to the scene of the crime-in-progress, cursing his lack of rocket boots and ordering his spiders to begin construction of his Superman Gauntlet on the way, knowing it would take at least a couple minutes. He was wholly underprepared for dealing with anything serious, but he was willing to bet he could take on some armed mooks.

[Audrey]

Once again, grabbing at the opportunity of a distraction from her very much temporary ally, Cheshire manages to escape from the metahuman's grasp after slashing his face with her claws leaving him a crying bloody wreck. "So that's what color reptile blood is. You saved me a trip to the library," Jade mocked the agonizing opponent as she leaped after the goon who had taken her detonator, going the speed of an Olympic runner once she got down on all fours. Unfortunately, she only managed to grab him as soon as the safe slammed shut with the detonator inside. She instantly grabbed to yank it open again, it had locked. She instantly snagged the goon's throat and pressured it with her fist. For one so short, Cheshire was strong. Your neck in her grip was not something you wanted. "What is the code to the safe?" she asked threateningly as the goon struggled.
"I dunno! Only the boss does!" the goon answered nervously struggling.
"Wrong answer," Jade groaned, slamming the goon against a metal banister knocking him out cold and leaving a little blood behind. Instantly, she turned her attention onto the gang leader who had made an escape to try to disarm her satchel charges.

With her miraculous bounding charge, she ran at the leader, who soon noticed her coming and whipped out a pistol and proceeded to fire it into her chest. Rather anti-climatically, Cheshire fell to the ground motionless. Slowly the leader started to smile and eventually began laughing. "I didn't think it'd be that easy! What a worthless little-" He was interrupted when Cheshire suddenly began to stand up again as if nothing had happened. She calmly pulled the bullet from where it had embedded itself in her kimono.
"Cute," she said flicking the bullet away before grabbing the leader's neck and slamming him against the wall. "I'll ask nicely first, what's the safe combination?"
"Go to hell pussy cat!" he said as he spat on her mask.
"Your gang really should not try out for Family Feud you are FULL of wrong answers," she shook her a bit as she said and then slammed the leader into the ground real quick before putting him back up on the wall. "I can do this all night long but all I need is three numbers and I can make it stop. I've barely begun to play hard."

[Deleted]

By hiding behind cover, Wargirl forced the criminals to get up close and personal. Demonstrating her enhanced agility, Wargirl leaped out and clocked four guards in the face with a single set of punches. There was one guard left standing from one of those metal-bending punches, so Wargirl hoisted him up in the air. She saw the meta-human liason, and Mystery Mask interrogating the gang leader. What happened there? Well, she'd let Mystery Mask do her thing. The meta-human liason began charging like a bull right at her, so Wargirl threw her hostage in his path.

"Hey Leatherhead! You've still got me to deal with!" Leatherhead. That works better than meta-human liason.

"What the," Leatherhead turned and faced Wargirl, already somersaulting through the air. A rubber bullet didn't hurt him, so she tried something a little more damaging. In mid spin, she procured an oversized mallet, the kind you'd find at carnivals for Test Your Strength competitions. She clubbed Leatherhead right over his leather head, and Wargirl landed with a graceful pirouette just as her hammer finished dematerializing. Leatherhead stumbled around, clearly dazed. Without hesitation Wargirl swung both her left fists in an uppercut to his stomach. Leatherhead was down on his knees. "Heh, not so tough now, aren't you..." Finally, Wargirl procured a metal baseball bat, gripping it with all four arms, she was ready to deliver the knockout blow. Leatherhead had other plans. Leaping forward, he tackled Wargirl and pinned her to the ground. "You nosy brat! You don't know what you're getting into!"

Wargirl struggled to escape, but he was simply too big and too heavy. Maybe she could cut off her arms? She knew full well from childhood experience that her regeneration would cause them to grow back, but the idea sounded unpleasant. She had no firm footing on the ground, so teleporting was out of the question. So that leaves one option, a very unappealing one.

"I could use some help over here!"

[Buse]

Why the hell did I think this would be a good idea?

Dar'Kneevel was hidden in the upper parts of the building, close to the ceiling, just watching the action unfold. A huge sale of a new drug... not gonna lie, that was REALLY interesting. There was a ton of money and... well, "merchandise" being traded there. If he could get a small dose of either, nobody would probably ever notice... but he'd be set.

Or he WOULD be set if more supers didn't decide to start showing up and messing up his plans. I mean sure, they were good distractions, but now he was stuck at the ceiling, 70% translucid, watching as chaos unfolded. Wait... that was it! They were all worried about the noise!

Upping the stealth to 90%, he gracefully got closer to the confusion, ever so silently... trying to reach a crate that ware more distant to the two brawls(and any henchmen...) and moving quickly, he got the bad and put it in his pocket, automatically making it go near-invisible too. Looking at the door, he considered running out... before he figured out the confusion was just in the way to the door, then deciding to run back to his hiding place and just watch the brawl, looking for an opening to escape. He had to get out of there before things got even worse.

[Deleted]

When Toyman finally reached the building, he got a front seat to the retreating thugs, some of which only ran far enough to remain undisturbed as they each prepared some kind of injection, all obviously more professional-looking than their more cowardly counterparts. Hiro hurried his spiders along in the construction of his only available weapon and waited, trying to figure out how to make his entrance.

As the thugs finished their preparations, they stabbed syringes into their arms, and some underwent rapid, visible changes: The first grew scales and a pair of horns, much like the drug ring's liaison, plus a set of wings and a tail; The second and third didn't go through any obvious changes, though the third turned around towards the escaping mooks and did something out of Hiro's view, and, when he turned back, a mantle of floating red fluid followed him. The fourth thug wasn't as lucky as the others, and his figure flattened to the point Hiro thought him invisible, but then the goon failed to stand straight, and folded at the waist, showing he was now flat as paper. All of them stumbled around at first, though the first and third ones managed to eventually regain their cool.

After witnessing the spectacle, the teenaged hero fitted his gauntlet over his right arm and hoped for a distraction. He wasn't used to fighting super-powered individuals, and these guys all looked like they weren't in the best state of mind, and quite dangerous, with the obvious exception of the flattened druggy.

As the hallucinating metahumans made their way into the building, Hiro ran to the unlucky one, lifting the thin form easily and carrying him towards and alley, to question him.

"Tell me about the stuff that did this to you!" Hiro said, ironing the thug against the alley's wall with his hands, his grip slipping.

"Man... your face has fishies swimming all over it. It looks so weird..." The cross-eyed man could barely string a sentence together.

"Snap out of it, cardboard man, I'm serious!"

[Audrey]

As she was attempting to slam the safe combination out of the leader, Jade couldn't help but notice one of the packages of SUPR suddenly obtain a mind of it's own and start floating away before vanishing itself. "It seems we're not alone here," she mumbled as she looked between where the product disappeared and the leader. She then came up with a wonderful idea of how she could kill two birds with one stone. "Looks like we're going for a ride," Cheshire said deviously to the gang leader. His face was all the reaction she needed before she took off towards the upper levels with the leader pinned onto claws so he dangled off like a twisted sort of screaming hood ornament.

Being a master of stealth herself, Cheshire knew the faults of invisibility to a T. The biggest of all? Invisibility does not equal incorporeal. When moving about, one's actions still displaced the world around them. Namely, the air. Cheshire knew exactly where to get moving to, after feeling the air trail left behind by her prey's vault towards the upper levels. A quick little angling of the direction, and she knew where he was going and followed suit, Jerry McScreamsalot in tow. "I would ask that you put the SUPR back where you got it from, lest you end up like this guy in my hand. You can try to run away all you'd like, but I know exactly where you'll go. The invisibility parlor trick doesn't mean anything to me, I can see you through my mask," she threatened to the empty spot where she sense the looter's presence. The mask thing was a lie given the thing really was just superfluous, but given her tracking skills she likely could pursue him as if she could see him for a long enough time to convince him she could literally see him.

Meanwhile, the high-flying acrobatics finally made the gang leader talk.
"Okay okay! The combination is 36-24-36! But only if she's 5'3''!" he squawked out nervously. Jade proceeded to give him a look of contempt from behind her mask before dropping him to the ground of the bottom floor.
"Well now that that dead weight's gone, I can easily follow you wherever you go. Usain Bolt only has the Olympic speed record because I was disqualified," she said, half-bluffing. She was never disqualified from the Olympics (though, she probably would if she tried.) but it was certainly true she at the very least could keep pace with the Jamaican runner.

[Deleted]

Pinned down, Wargirl scrambled to think of a way to get this big lug off of him. Mystery Mask ran off, probably to get the safe code (what was in the safe, anyways?). So she was alone this time. She thought of something.

"Oi, your breath stinks! You kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?"

It worked. Leatherhead removed one of his lumpy paws to punch Wargirl in the face, but that freed up enough of her arms to get a good two handed lock on his other wrist. A swift twist and all four arms were free and on his chest. One final push and Wargirl rolled backwards, free. Knuckleduster still seemed ready to fight, but now he was furious.

Like a charging bull, Leatherhead let out a gutteral growl and charged, but Wargirl delivered an expert Judo throw, sending him hurtling towards a pile of crates. His heels over his head, legs flopping over, Leatherhead looked quite defeated.

Wargirl cracked her knuckles and thought for a moment.
The guards are all defeated, the liaison ready to be arrested for questioning, I guess this constitutes a victory? But she still heard the sound of a scuffle. Were there even more supers here now? Wargirl was about to run off to check it out when suddenly the warehouse windows smashed open. A gray-ish brown blur swooped in

"Hands off of him, you !"

There in front of her stood a hideous, feral looking bat-woman. She glared at Wargirl with barely contained fury, as if she were about to literally explode with anger like that one guy from Big Trouble in Little China. Leatherhead began to right himself.

"Babe? What are you doing here?
"Babe?"
"You asked me to provide support from the rooftops, sweetie. Rooftops are secure, it looks like I'm more needed here."
"Sweetie?"
"Alright, snookums. Fine. There's a cape and a Brotherhood of Evil goon here to stop us. Let's take 'em out before we're late for our dinner date."
"SNOOKUMS???"

Wargirl was now flanked. Leatherhead on one side, Girlbat on the other. She nearly lost valuable time trying to wrap her head around the fact that these two criminals were in a disgustingly saccharine relationship, but still she managed to make the decision she felt was best. With a single step, she teleported out of the room and into a good hiding spot.

[Buse]

Aaand things got even worse.

Apparently someone had seen him. Not just that, it was one of the mutants that had just wrecked the gang. While having one person out for his head was better than have a whole gang, when the former had bested the latter, things got a bit complicated. Looking back as he retreated, he nearly swore under his breath, but stopped in time to remind himself even the slightest noise could screw him over. Maybe the girl jumping there was a coincidence...

Yeah no, it wasn't, which was made obvious when she started talking to him... having a mutant trying to intimidate him was bad, and the fact that she had dragged a gangster to find out that he was there(and had stolen SUPR) made it all worse. Of course, the gangster wasn't really important anymore after he was dropped to the bottom floor... it did a good work on scaring Dar even more, however. And she could see him? He knew for a fact he was screwed, though he decided to continue invisible, upping the stealth to a whooping 95%. In his current mental situation, he could probably maintain 80% without too much effort, but he couldn't afford to be seen by MORE people. He tried desperately to think of a good plan, starting to talk when he figured out he had gone enough time silent and one more second would get her to act.

"Damn it... look, I got nothing up my sleeve, let's negotiate. How about a deal? Say, I'll give you 50% of all the cash I make selling that. How about that, uh? Think about it. It's a lot of cash, and you won't need to move a finger."

As he talked, he slowly lifted his arms, pulling back his sleeves up to before his elbows to illustrate his initial point. Specially because, all things considered, maybe showing he was no threat would help his case... again, more wishful thinking. In the end, his daggers were still safely concealed on his back. Of course, he was still ready to go on a mad dash the moment she decided to attack him. The good news is that, as any thief worth his salt, he was wearing a ski mask, so she still couldn't know his face. The bad news is that it didn't protect him from dying.

[Deleted]

After extracting whatever information he could from the drug-addled thug-shaped paper (I.e., barely anything), Hiro sprung into action. He took the SUPR user by his flat hand and ran into the warehouse next-door, climbing the stairs two-by-two, making adjustments to his gauntlet and preparing a pair of rocket boots all the while. Without a generator to charge them, the boots would only lift him for a few seconds, but that was all he needed for the plan that was solidifying in his mind.

He still needed a good one-liner, and it was hard to think with the thug sceaming about whatever he was seeing on the walls as he flew behind Toyman. The one-liner was important, but Hiro was willing to bet on the chance of lighting a lightbulb on the spot if shaving off thinking-time would get this to work. Soon enough, he reached the roof and jumped from the edge, using the thug as a make-shift glider. The rocket boots gave him enough lift to reach his target: The top-floor's window, which he kicked in and entered through, as he let the thug flutter down into the alleyway.

As his feet hit the warehouse floor, glass still showering the surroundings, his mouth opened,

"Playtime's over, time to tidy up- hang on!"

"Ok. Here comes the Toyman, to house his wares-, no wait!"

He stood there, scratching the back of his head. "Maybe I should go out and try this again, come back with something witty prepared."

[Audrey]

... Well she obviously wasn't going to be taking that deal. Cheshire really had no need for money. She really didn't have anything she needed that she didn't already have. Not to mention this set-up was all too suspicious. What thief with invisibility powers would be stupid enough to show up without a weapon? He had weapons somewhere on him no doubt hidden, and he wasn't fooling anyone let alone Chesh. She thought for a second what exactly she was going to do.
"I'm coming for you invisible girl!" an ear splitting voice suddenly yelled in her direction, causing her to lose focus and appear visible for a second before she managed to clear her mind once more. Looking over, there appeared to be some half bat-half woman thing running at her about to take flight and ram into both her and likely the thief on accident given her enormous size. She needed a solution here. Trapped between two forces, what does one do?

"Cancel them out," she thought as a grin creeped onto her face. She waited for just a second until the bat-woman took flight and grabbed out for just below where she had heard the thief's voice come from, getting a firm grip on his collar. Using her surprising amount of strength, she lifted the thief just off the banister and tossed him right at the Bat woman trying to use enough force that his landing would smash the SUPR vial in his pockets. "You'll have to fight me!" she threw her voice forward, making it sound like she was where the thief was in an attempt to fool the bat lady into thinking she was the thief. With that settled, she hopped away towards the safe once more. Considering the bat woman wasn't following her, it seemed she bought that the thief was her. If the fall didn't smash that SUPR, the bat woman's relentless assault on him would.

She reached the safe, and quickly put in the combination, popping open the safe door with ease. Inside she found her detonator, several stacks of hundred dollar bills, a wedding ring, and ... a stack of Beatles records? Jade quickly took the detonator and put it back on her wrist, and looked at the contents for a little longer. After thinking for a little bit, she snatched the records and a single stack of bills. She would never admit it, but Chesh liked herself some Beatles. Luckily, being invisible, no one would notice her taking them. With everything she needed and by the looks of it, the satchel charges still intact, Cheshire smashed the closest window and climbed out, prepared to get to a safe distance to set off the charges.