Garfield Lynns, somewhere in a basement deep under a building which looked no more suspicious than any other, stood hunched over a workbench. In the last few hours, he had repaired his rotor from the damage it had suffered in his last encounter and had sketched a few schematics, which were now scattered around the room, which could make his equipment more durable if he could get his hands on suitable materials.

Of course, that wasn't all. He had a large stockpile of fuel and had refilled his tanks as normal but had also made a few more grenades and started work on a larger device. He'd need more materials to get it to work but once done, it could easily destroy a smaller building by itself and, hopefully, that fighting pest from earlier.

He'd also been doing his research on the other combatant. He wasn't the kind of person to consider so-called heroes his enemies but this person, Anarky as he seemed to be called, could be a problem.

"Wait!" Val whispered- the loudest whisper he could muster- as he struggled to follow the masked man's underling. "Shouldn't we colaborate on a plan before entering the location your master gave us?"

The entire bar went silent. Lobo and Domino saw that they had walked into a particularly... eccentric bar. Mostly everyone here had costumes. The guys playing pool each wore a costume more outrageous than the others, and the women were no exception. Two girls wearing costumes with musical notes looked at each other and shrugged, before the bar tender- the most normal looking of the bunch- scoffed. "You fellas go back to what you're doing."

The entire bar sprung back to normal, the guys talking about bank robberies, the gals talking about kidnapping police officers (the two girls with musical notes talking about how they escaped from New York to Hub City in search of a better life). You could not find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy doing everything except being scum or villains.

The bartender motioned to two spots next to a saddened looking man◊, a man that looked like he was made out of gold◊ and a man with a skull mask◊ silently drank and watched the television. "If you two want a drink, the spot's open." The bartender mumbled under his moustache. "But if you want to look for a fight, you came to the wrong place."

The information delivered to Will by White would lead him, as he had informed, to a small property on the waterfront. It wasn't that noticeable: just another small dark red brick house amidst a thousand dark red brick houses, with a plain white door and a window with heavy white curtains stopping anyone from looking inside, a black rooftop toping it all off. A one floor, two floor place at best. Not much to display proudly...

But then again, maybe that was the intention of the man inside. A normal house, hiding a wicked man.

The three henchmen remained silent during the banter session between Silvermane and Slade, not taking their eyes out of their prey. "Are you two done?" Black Tarantula asked, groaning. "Good. Kill them."

Outside, Karate Kid followed Bucky, hand still held out, before hearing something on the corner of his eye. He flinched, turning around, spotting something coming out of the shadow...

Within a second, the three henchmen jumped forward, pulling out their weapons. The man, Anton, unsheathed a sword the same size as Slade's, moving forward to perform a diagonal slash at his chest. The woman pulled out nunchucks, and immediately went towards Silvermane's face, aiming to hit him several times as the other man went after his back, pulling out a pair of daggers which he attempted to stab Silvermane's sides with.

Karate Kid dove forward, pulling Bucky out of the way and throwing him to the ground, as a bullet hit the wall right in front of the Winter Soldier. The bullet beeped once, twice, and then it dissolved, liberating a green ooze, which procceeded to dissolve some of the wall too. "It's an ambush—" Karate Kid began, but a whip wrapped itself around his neck, pulling him back as three henchmen, two women and one men, came out of the shadows, dressed in grey body suits with a black spider stretched across the chest, balaclavas obscuring their mouths and bandanas with eyeholes covering their eyes. One of the women, wielding a whip and a dagger, focused on bringing Karate Kid closer to her so she could make a kill. The other two started walking calmly towards Bucky, the other lady wielding a machine gun (with a canister strapped to it, some kind of modification) and the other wielding sais, spinning them around in his hands as he grinned viciously behind the balaclava.

At the edge of town, there was a warehouse. It wasn't a very noticeable warehouse. It never had any movement in it and it seemed abandoned, so most people just considered it to be a relic of a time when people could just build things in their cities without worrying about anything else. The unnoticeable nature of the warehouse was on purpose- if anyone ever bothered to do an in-depth look into the history of the warehouse, they'd find records hidden in the farthest depths of the local library tying the warehouse's ownership to the earliest members of Hub City's- and perhaps America's- biggest crime gang, the Maggia.

They'd also soon find themselves sleeping with the fishes, so no one bothered with it.

But at that moment, on that night, a lone white van stopped in front of the warehouse, two tatooed twenty year old men burstin through the side door, shooting their way past security checks and Maggia guards protecting the boxes upon boxes of Maggia wares with silenced pistols, not wanting to attract anyone's attention.

One security guard fell on top of a particularly hardy set of crates in the middle of the warehouse, which one of the men started removing and checking. "You... you two..." The suited guard mumbled in his last breath. "You're... you're Maggia! What the hell are you doing, you two-timin' sons of a b—"

One of the invaders put up a gun against the older men's forehead, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We got the news, buddy. The Old Boss is going down. He's sick, he's old, and he's biting the dust any day now. We decided that instead of going down with the ship." He grinned as the other man started loading goods like old china, goblets, and other old-looking (but probably priceless) crap into his bag. "We're going to go out on top."

"You're not going—"

"To get away with this?" The man laughed. "You dumb fucker, we just shot up a warehouse that no one cares about in the middle of the night. By the time the other idiots get here, we'll be halfway across the world with new identities and a shitload of money. Now," He clicked the safety off. "Go fuck yourself."

As the guard's lifeless body fell to the side, the two men laughed, high-fiving each other as they checked out the loot they got, gawking at every priceless looking thing they found. And then, one of them let out a scoff. "Dude. Look at this!" He said, holding up a glowing sword.◊ "This shit must be worth millions!"

"Put it in my bag!" The other man claimed, unaware that at that moment, Morgan Le Fay would feel a tinge, as something magical had just been unlocked from the depths of a chest, enchanted to hide it's presence from other people with magical abilities. And at the same time, Two-Face's gang would be getting a warning from one of their lookouts about a shootout happening at a warehouse that their group suspected belonged to the Maggia...

edited 24th Jul '14 8:15:11 PM by TheBigBean

Back at Two Face's courthouse base, he was having yet another argument with himself.

"We need to consolidate the territory we have before we go after the other gangs in the city."

   No, no, no, we need to hit these assholes now! We need to make an impression on this city, make..    He saw a goon run over to him.    WHAT!?   

"Sir, one of the lookouts called, there's a shooting down at the abandoned warehouse."

"And? Why do we care?"

"Our boys got word that this place may be owned by the Maggia."

   Really? Oh, that's interesting. If someone's doing a hit on their place, this could be our chance to hit em as well. Who knows what these assholes are storing in there that we can steal?   

"We shouldn't just go charging in without a plan."

   We're wasting time arguing when we know how this will end! Flip the damn coin!    He took out the coin and flipped it, landing scarred side up.    Grab some men and meet us outside! Hurry your ass up!   

A few minutes later, Two Face and four random goons were loaded in a car, with a second car following behind them. They quickly arrived at the place, and got out to see the bloodshed outside.

"They got hit hard and fast. Probably sneaked up on them, otherwise there would be a lot more bullet holes."

   Body's are still fresh. Could still be here. Second car, stay here, call us if any other assholes show up.    Two Face walked into the warehouse, following the trail of body's to the storeroom, with his goons trailing close behind.

edited 24th Jul '14 8:44:12 PM by Meanken

Silvermane rolled his eyes as the woman with the nunchucks and the man with the knives attempted their pincer attack. What kind of rookie did they think he was? He dropped his arms down, driving his elbows into the wrists of the man behind him, taking a hard step back to shove the both of them into the wall. Then, pushing off the man behind him, he drove both his feet into the woman's face with the power of a pneumatic press.

Morgan lefay was still crossing her arms as she watched from her green crystal ball at Terra finding her way towards Karate Kid. While she was more than willing to help her, she resisted the urge to interfere but she had faith in her protégé's abilities. She continued watching until she suddenly felt a sudden shift in the balance of magic that only those with a talent for the mystic arts would feel.

Morgan peeked through her crystal ball as she saw a powerful sword at the maggia’s base. ”Typical of mortals and their ignorance of magic, but this will make thing easier” Morgan grinned as she noticed that the maggia goons were taking the sword didn’t know the value of the sword. Morgan snapped her fingers to summon Etrigan in his human form and told him. “Get me that sword, whatever it takes” she told him with a stern tone as Etrigan only nodded. She then teleported “Jason Blood (Etrigan) near the entrance of the warehouse.

Jason blood

A Caucasian man with a skunk streak on his hair who was wearing black military clothes and a steel sword, approached Two-face as he arrived at the Maggia warehouse.

He kneeled towards Two face and said to him in a calm but submissive tone towards him “I am your servant, as well as my mistress, the legendary sorceress ,who sent me to help you in your mission to get your loot , my mistress offers you this special key for your services and in return she only wants a special sword inside this place”.

edited 24th Jul '14 11:26:56 PM by RPGLegend

Two Face's goons quickly aimed their guns at the man, but Two Face raised his hand up to stop them. "We may be willing to accept that deal."

   But we've never been good at sharing, even between ourselfs. We're going to go and assume this sword has some value, and we're not really worried about whoever did this.   

"Element of surprise and such."

   What's stopping us from telling them to open fire and take it for ourselfs?   

edited 24th Jul '14 9:54:26 PM by Meanken

Jason Blood

"My mistress believes this would be more than enough compensation" Jason said as he took a seemingly average looking wooden key from his pocket. "This is one of Caerus's keys, it can open any mortal made lock, but it can only be used once until a full moon recharges it's power," Jason replied still looking at the ground. "I will serve you, like I serve my mistress Morgan Lefay, as a token for your long term alliance".

Jason's attitude didn't give a clue if he was serving Lefay willingly or if he was a slave, but he nonetheless acted was as humble as he could towards Two face waiting for his reaction.

edited 24th Jul '14 10:12:10 PM by RPGLegend

Two Face took the key and looked at it. "Interesting."

   If it's legit.   

"Well, we'll have plenty of opportunity to test it out tonight."

   Hope you can handle yourself, we don't abide slackers and hanger ons in our crew. Let's move it!    Two Face walked past the man and continued on.

Jason Blood

"I won't disappoint you, master" Jason told Two face as he walked towards his goons ready to help them in the oncoming fight. Jason took his medieval sword in his hands as he remained with his ever stoic expression waiting for his new master's orders.

edited 24th Jul '14 11:22:08 PM by RPGLegend

Bucky let out a slight grunt of sound when he was brought to the ground, nearly automatically swinging an elbow, but stopping short at the sight of the melting wall, then his rescuer being dragged backwards. He turned to take in the bad guys, only long enough to see them and their weapons before aiming the sniper rifle one-handed with his metal arm, popping off a shot at the woman with the machine gun before dropping the gun...he wouldn't have time to reload. His other hand grabbed the pistol at his side and aimed it at the man with the sais, though his gaze did not leave the woman.

The Bistro

Seeing Bucky particularly busy with two opponents and Karate Kid in trouble, Terra knew she had to act. The woman pulling Karate Kid in for the kill would find an earthen wall get between her and her target.

Terra used the sword that she had gotten from Morgan LeFay to attempt to slice the whip holding Karate Kid in half. However, Terra's focus seemed to be on Bucky's fight and namely the woman who she assumed fired the green ooze... After all, that ooze could counter her powers, so she wants to make sure Bucky had gotten her first.

edited 24th Jul '14 10:36:00 PM by GameGuruGG

The Bar

'The Bar with No Name' wasn't a fixed place; it moved regularly, to keep the authorities -and heroes- from tracking it down. Patrons either stumbled on it or were tipped off by acquaintances. Rumor recently was that someone in particular was looking for the place to close it down *permanently.* Which was the main reason it currently moved to Hub City.

Of course, Anarky was one of those 'in the know'. So he easily found the bar and walked in unnoticed until he was inside.

Once inside, nobody gave him more than a cursory glance; a few recognized him, most didn't. He easily spotted the person he was looking for.

Secretly, he had to admit, he was nervous. He was going to deal with someone dangerous even to him. But, if his plans were ever to be realized, he had to get used to taking risks like this.

"Mister Lobo, right?" he asked the Czarnian. "I'm Anarky, and I have a proposal for you. I understand you are on for hire, correct?"

edited 25th Jul '14 3:30:29 PM by Sijo

Slade easily blocked the slash from Anton, not moving, his stance not faltering, as he just stared back at his enemy. "You lack strength." He muttered, pushing him back and attempting to kick him on the side of his body, aiming to send him stumbling to his right, so he could follow that up with a diagonal slash of his own, coming from his left to his right, hopefully meeting Anton's stumbling body halfway through.

Seeing the shot coming from a mile away, the woman attempted to dodge it, but the sound of bullet grazing against skin indicated that Bucky had hit her, barely. The man with the sais jumped forward, moving from spot to spot, each bullet nearly hitting him, before sliding towards Bucky so he could try to slice his legs- just as the woman aimed her own gun and shot a bullet towards the soldier's mechanical arm.

Karate Kid fell to his knees, removing the whip from his neck and massaging it as he regained his breath. "Terra, you—" He started, getting a coughing fit halfway through, looking up at Terra, his eyes widening in fear. " Look out! " He groaned, pointing at the wall she had created. The whip-wielding woman having jumped over the wall, pulling out two pistols from the back of her, shooting at Terra in particular.

Meanwhile, inside the bistro, the woman fighting Silvermane threw herself back, narrowly avoiding his feet, before wrapping her nunchucks around one of them so she could try to pull him away from her friend, who was groaning from the pressure of being squished against the wall. Anton was dealing with his own troubles- Slade's kick against his side did send him stumbling, but he managed to recover his balance at the nick of time, watching as his enemy's blade left a nasty gash on his chest.

"Come now, Anton." Black Tarantula sighed from his spot on the table. "You can do better."

Anton simply nodded, rushing forward and delivering a series of never-ending quick strikes meant to put Slade on a rhythm- left, right, left, right, left, right. Leaving no room for Slade to interrupt him, he waited until he felt the swordsman was repeating the motions without noticing them, and then attempted an almost immediate stab, aiming for where Slade's heart resided.

Following the trail of bodies, Two-Face, his mooks and Blood would be lead to a spot in the middle of the warehouse, where the empty crate that once held the sword now rested. "YO, MOTHERFUCKERS!" The voice of one of the ex-Maggia goons yelled out as he appeared on top of a pile of crates, wielding a greande launcher, ammo, and an obscene amount of body armor. With a grin on his face, he showered an exploding hell upon his enemies, laughing as his other friend (the sword popping out from his backpack) appeared from behind another pile of crates, unleashing his machine gun on them.

Two Face and 3 of his goons were able to dive out of the blast radius before the grenade hit, thanks to the goon stupidly yelling before attacking. The forth goon was too slow and ended up getting blown apart. They took cover behind some crates that were quickly getting shot apart by the machine gun.

   Kill them, now!   

"Boss, what the hell do you want us to hit him with? You see that armor?" One of the goons asked.

   You are very lucky we can't afford to be killing you idiots at the moment. Just shoot at him!    Two Face snuck behind a different set of crates and pulled out his handguns as his goons fired back, waiting for them to draw the attacker's attention.

Jason Blood

Jason look as stoic as ever and only took his sword charging in a sucidal way towards the armored goon "hey over here" he said as he tried to distract them for Two face goon's to shoot at them with less trouble.

edited 27th Jul '14 10:03:08 PM by RPGLegend

Bucky was questioning on some faraway, distant level why exactly people consistently found it necessary to come charging in at him out of nowhere. Needless to say, he handled it in the exact same manner with which he had handled it from Karate Kid earlier...leaping forward and over the man with the sais, a sudden puff of fabric from his jacket indicating the woman's bullet hadn't entirely missed, but with the solid black any injury wasn't revealed. His metal hand hitting the ground first to brace himself, knife still clutched in his flesh one as he flipped forward and landed on his knees, spinning and flinging the knife hard for the armed woman.

Terra quickly created more earth walls between her and the one trying to shoot at her to block the bullets, and to get some distance between her and the woman with the pistols. She was worried about it being more wall-dissolving ooze though since she could not effectively block that as well.

If Slade was surprised by the man's speed even after being slashed in the chest, the man didn't show it. In fact, he remained steadfast on his way and countered every single one of his enemy's strikes, aware of what he was doing. In his mind, the enemy became him, and he became Bucky. The bistro became their warehouse. The night became an afternoon. The battle for his life became a memory of a lesson.

His mistake. When Anton moved to stab him, Slade knew what to do, but he did it too late. He was going to parry Anton's sword up with his sword, push it up and hold it there, and then pull out the other sword in his back, and use it to stab him. He got halfway through the move, pushing the sword up, but it managed to pierce his shoulder fully, trapping him there. Not wanting to lose this fight, Slade reached for his other sword, pulling out of its sheath, attempting to stab Anton in the heart as fast as possible.

Silvermane ripped the nunchuck away, planting his foot down, before headbutting the man behind him. He took a few steps away, fumbling with the nunchuck around his ankle and trying not to trip. Once he had the nunchuck in his hands, he debated using the weapon as it was intended to be used. He'd practiced with them a little on a trip to Japan. But, with a shrug, he broke the chain and threw the two pieces of metal, one at the man attacking Wilson, and one for the woman he was fighting, as hard as he could, aiming for their heads.

OOOOOOO, the fight over at the bistro was really intensifying! Slade was laying the smackdown on his opponent despite being on the defensive. However, Slade got sloppy and got hit. Meanwhile, Silvermane was doing incredibly well with his two-against-one situation so much he managed to get a hit on Anton! Out back things were slightly grimmer, with Bucky having to face down two of the goons at the same time, including the girl with the acid modded gun, while the last was baring down on Terra. Spiral was confident they'll pull through. More excitement for the audience to see the heroes on the ropes.

The major B-plot at the moment was a raid on a warehouse by the formerly powerful Maggia crime family by some disgruntled former employees, whom managed to recover some magic sword. Morgan wanted it for some reason and sent her servant Jason to get fetch along with Two-Face. Inevitable shoot-out occurred with the Maggia clearly in the advantage. Dent showed real balls though by toughing it out. Jason then ran in at the mooks, seemingly unaware of the fact the target had RP Gs and outgunned him severely. Either Jason had a deathwish or he was just stupid about modern weaponry.

Lastly, the bar Lobo and Domino entered was more in common with many bars around the universe in terms of civility. While disappointing considering this podunk middle of nowhere dirt ball, it least bring relatability to the table. Lastly, Harm reached where the Flamingo was hiding. The tension would easily build as the audience waits to see what surprises would be in store......Spiral though was hoping whatever in there killed Harm outright.

Will stood before the building, suddenly aware of the glamour concealing his scar. It would be so much easier to put the fear of God into this Flamingo until he handed over the money that White was due. Of course, that hadn’t worked so well for the cops that had never showed up. Perhaps this was better after all. He glanced at Garfield behind him, and relayed instructions. “Simply do the best to look intimidating. I will handle the talking. If things get ugly, aim for the legs. The dead can’t pay.” He said, putting emphasis on that final part to illustrate he meant himself as well.

He zipped up the hoodie further. He’d spent the afternoon lining it’s insides with knives in case he needed them. But the less fighting prowess he managed to show, the better. “Any questions?”

Security and intimidation wasn't Garfield's normal line of work but it was something and he couldn't steal everything so he had to earn somehow. As he walked down behind Will, he looked like a fairly typical thug, including a hood that obscured him from any direction but the front, which offered up the worst of his scars instead. He had hidden his weapons in various places around his clothing, not easily visible but quick to draw, and a deathly glare emanated from his vision.

He looked over to Will and shook his head.

"Ready."

Will nodded at Garfield's scarred face in response, then walked up to the door. Giving it a cursory glance for anything that looked obviously like a trap (he was hardly an expert in rigging explosions or the like) he reached up and knocked.