Mockery of the Police [Canary]

[Fritz Stahl]

Ah, another sunny day in Gotham city... People rushing about their daily matters, life hustling and bustling on the streets, like in a giant anthill. Ah, Gotham, one would never believe now that once it was a grim, dark place, where the scum of the world made their dirty living, where it was dangerous to go at night without a gun... Now people looked happy, smile often on their faces... It was a very good day indeed...

The square in front of Gotham city police HQ today was filled with people. Civilians, police, random people - it was quite a crowd around. What would be the cause of commotion, one might ask, listening to the sounds? Surely nothing worth one's worry, right? Gotham was a safe place now, after all, and this was like, the Police HQ. Hnh, of course not. It was just an assembly, preparing to meet a congresswoman, who scheduled to meet the people today, for today was a holiday, commonly known as "Police day". it was 11:51, nine minutes left...

Judith Kinsley - her name was famous among the people, an officers of police - she was one of the most ardent supporters of reforming the police into the force it was now - into something that could uphold the law and help Gotham be such a peaceful city as it was. Needless to say, she was very popular. Today was the day she wanted to say thank you to all those who put their lives on the line, defending the people and the law...

At 11:59 a small cortège approached the square in front of the HQ, it was situated of a black car and several biked policemen on sides - a very ... unlikely protection against anything serious. But yet, Judith was a brave woman, and she was loved by the people, and if she claimed the city was safe, she showed confidence in her statement with her behavior. She appeared soon, without any body-guards, a frail little woman with curled blond hair, somewhere in her thirties, yet she looked a bit childish in her stature... One would never think her to be a congresswoman. At 12:00 the whole thing began...

- Fellow citizens of Gotham city, friends... Today is a great holiday for all of us, today is the day when all people should remember and be grateful to all those brave men and women who stood on guard of our very society through its darkest hours, sacrificing their lives in order to defend ours. Our dear Police officers, today is your holiday, you have more than earned it with your meritorious efforts, you will forever set an example for the rest of us, how ordinary men and women can make change with their efforts. From all the citizens of Gotham, I would like to thank you, and ensure your service will not be forgotten... - a very strong, willful voice came of that tiny woman, a very charismatic one too. She was one of those people who actually fulfilled promises given to the people. She would later say that the government is going to raise their salaries, but it would come to that. The people just listened to her and cheered - it was good to see a government official who actually cared...

But, unknown to anyone... the woman was watched by ... someone else...

[Black Canary]

Anna slouched against the side of a building. It wasn't that she wasn't happy about Gotham finally getting its act together and taking a tough stance on crime. Very much the opposite. But she HATED attending long speeches. Adults never knew when to shut up- why use twenty words to address an issue when you could use two hundred. And then they would pause and you would think "finally!" and then they would start talking again.

She was here on a class field trip for her government and civics course at West Gotham High. She half-heartedly jotted some notes down, knowing that she would be asked to write some assignment based on this event later. God, she would rather be in class than attending this. Worst field trip ever. At least the sun was warm on her face. She shed her jacket, trying to tan as much as possible. She rolled her eyes and jotted down some more notes. At least Mrs. D wasn't going to yell at her for violating the dress code again.

"God, this is so boring," she muttered under her breath. One of her classmates in the crowd glared at her. It was Brianna, the girl who took everything way too seriously- and made Anna seem lax about her schoolwork. Anna simply stuck out her tongue.

[Fritz Stahl]

The assembly was considered a rather big event in social life of the town, and attracted attentions of many. Soon after the beginning it was possible to see many reporters with microphones, scopes of their cameras filming everything that got in their sights - the people, taking interviews with police in the back, and, of course, broadcasting the speech live. But what nobody knew, was that the person was "filmed" by another "scope"

And the unknown spectator was observing the development of events from a window of afar away four-story building, through the scope of his long rifle. A tall, black figure standing , still as a statue. It was not just any nutjob with a gun, however, not some radical... oh no, it was a being much more cruel - an angel of incoming apocalypse, metaphorically, or being too melodramatic...

But in a way, it was the truth. The black-clad sniper had a mission, a mission he gladly undertook. This was his first high-ranking target in Gotham in a long while. The city grew complacent. They thought they were safe, and there is no need to keep vigilant. The security was so careless they barely made any measures... They were going to pay for that...

- "Sacrificing their lives in order to protect ours"... Ha. Ha. Ha. - a lazy thought went through Wraith's head as he observed and overheard the speech from far away - his sound-catching systems allowed him to hear things as if he were there, amplifying the sound enough to figure out what was going on... Not that he cared anyhow... A smirk was ever present on his face under that black helmet of his.

Politicians... generals,.. government officials - these were people he hated much. All of them were scum, it was because of them all evils existed, from their silent approval all undercover experiments... It would have been a personal issue for him... some time ago. Now he did not care, he simply did a job. His shot would be a sign of darkness falling upon the city once more... Fright must be sewn into people's hearts... That was his employers plan... Let the horror begin ... on Police Day...

The strike was sudden, and completely unexpected... The moment before the tiny congresswoman was talking about something non-consequential, shaking hands with officers and random people, and giving an interview or two... And then ...

*BLAM!*

... The people were stricken in shock when all of a sudden, Judith's upper half of the body suddenly exploded like a pumpkin, showering closest with a red rain of blood and guts, as there was little left of it... The shot exploded into her chest, there was no chance of survival - no fancy "headshot", everything strictly to the letter - shot in center mass. Like it should be...

A shriek of terror was heard afterwards, as the people slowly realized what just happened, masks of horror frozen on their faces. And soon ... there was a fiendish laughter heard...

[Black Canary]

(OOC: what did he hit her with, a cannon?)

Anna was only half paying attention until she heard a long BANG. She ducked instinctively. The poor woman's body literally exploded. Anna was unfortunately close enough to see it happen. A fleck of blood and something else splattered onto her.

She had never seen anything so violent and horrifying in her entire life, even living in the slums of Gotham. It all seemed unreal. She just felt like if she blinked her eyes it would all go away...


She suddenly realized that her teacher was dragging her away from the scene of the crime, she was screaming at her, asking Anna if she was hurt. She shook her head, still too numb to form words. The teacher started dragging Anna back toward the bus. Anna shook her head and put her head next to her teacher's ear to shout above screams of panic.

"I'm fine! I can head back on my own! But if you don't do something people are going to be trampled!" The teacher was clearly reluctant, but nodded. Anna dashed off toward the bus- but only until she found a hiding place in an alleyway. There she took off her backpack and unzipped it, pulling out her Black Canary costume and changing into it. She rushed back to the crime scene.

An assassination in broad daylight. Gotham's criminals had grown too bold.

[Fritz Stahl]

- Sag aufwiedersehen zu der Welt. (translation: Say goodbye to the world) - Wraith snarked as he saw his 50 cal bullet made short work of the unfortunate politician, ending her life like that, making the upper half of the body literally explode. He picked the bullet himself, for massive damage. He wanted to make people fear, to run away like animals. They were animals after all, weak and afraid.

Panic that ensured was delightful - civilians and some of the rookie cops immediately made a run for it, more experienced ones barely holding the people into an organized retreat. There was much chaos, and the sniper laughed again. Target-rich environment much? Yeah, just about right. Still, he was paid to kill one, no need to shoot more of those unwitting saps. He was about to leave, but then ... noticed someone through his sights...

- Nun, wer sind sie, meine Gute?(Now, who are you, my dear?) - Fritz asked himself as he spotted among that disorganized mob ... a person. In a black leather jumpsuit and a domino mask. Tch, typical ridiculous super-hero outfit. The only thing missing was underpants on the outside, he-he... The sniper looked at her with a rather curious glare, and concentrated on his healthy eye for a little moment... This weird ability he discovered at some point before, or the "Evil Eye" as he called it, it should have did something right about now, though he wasn't sure. Wraith decided to play with his "pray" for a little while - she was just there, on open ground, he could have shot her, but instead decided to give a little warning...

- Hey! Don't go there! Stay in cover! - one of the policemen shouted to her as she passed him by, and then, suddenly ... another sound of the shot was heard. A huge crater appeared in the policeman's chest, splashing the surroundings with blood once more. The police looked in the hole in his own chest, his face looked a bit sorry and apologetic, before his eyes went dim and he collapsed unto the ground, lying in his own pool of blood. - You're next.

[Black Canary]

Blood and brain matter splattered Anna as the policeman's head developed a large hole in it. She would have fallen into shock again, but she didn't have that luxury. Instead she pushed her way through the crowd of those fleeing. Several times they pushed back. She had to be careful to avoid being trampled. One petite girl wasn't going to do much work for crowd control, even if she was armed. Heck, she doubted a barroom bouncer would be able to keep this crowd in line.


She began to feel a bit nauseous, no doubt from the site of the dead politician and police officer. She did her best to shake it off- she didn't have time to feel sick now. She took cover behind a truck and scanned for the shooter. A glint of light from above caught her eye. A reflection from glass or metal- perhaps a gun. She shot a grappling hook up onto the building and depressed a button. The grappling gun pulled her up to the top of the building.

[Fritz Stahl]

Tch, spotted - the sniper thought with a slight hint of irritation as she saw the spandex-clad woman stream through that river of people towards the building on which roof he was at. The yank of the grappling hook was heard a moment after, and the sniper knew that a few moments later she'd go up. Not that he was afraid or anything, there was little the "tiny" woman would have done. Lazily he stood up and put his rifle on his shoulder, as the girl climbed up to face him...

The moment at which the two enemies stood on the roof, looking at each other, lasted less than a second, but it was enough to figure out what kind of thread both represented to each other - a tall, black-clad soldier in full armor, bristling with weapons, against a somebody so ... lightly armed to say the least. Aside from those gauntlet-things, she didn't look like having anything else. Tch, how foolish.

*Click* - the grenade was thrown into the center of the "area", so to speak. But it was no ordinary frag grenade, oh no, it was serving a different purpose. Next moment the grayish canister exploded, engulfing the roof in smoke. That's it? Smoke screen? Yeah, right, you wish. The smoke was able to suffocate, hinder sight greatly, poison... Fritz was immune to it - the helmet doubled as gas-mask, fortunately...

He was wordless in his efforts, no cheesy speeches, no one-liners, no nothing. She was within his reach - there was little left to say. The smoke hindered sight, yes, normal sight that is. Wraith switched it to heat vision to see through, and soon the reddish silhouette was seen among the smoke. Handgun was quick-drawn and he pulled the trigger...

*BANG!*

[Black Canary]

Black Canary was just about to close in on her target when the man swiveled around and tossed a round object at her. She leaped back on reflex, and covered her mouth as best she could when gas started pouring out. She REALLY needed to find a way to get a gas mask. The sniper fired his rifle at her, but the gas appeared dense enough to obscure his vision enough for him to miss the shot. Either that or he wasn't a crack shot or he hadn't aimed quicly enough. Regardless, she was still alive, and that was what mattered. There was a crack as the bullet launched from the gun and landed right next to Black Canary.

The heroine fired her gauntlets. The sonic vibrations push the gas back toward the villain- and they also served to keep him from shooting at her again. Canary took advantage of the momentary distraction to charge toward her assailant. She kept her hands over her mouth and nose as she charged, but some of the gas got in her eyes, causing her to tear up. Her assailant grew blurry in her vision as she lashed out at him with her fists.

[Fritz Stahl]

- Inaccurate shot. How unfortunate. - Fritz stated to himself as he saw his bullet did not hit the target - otherwise she would have dropped dead. The shot was poorly-aimed to be honest - he did not even take a moment to properly aim at the target, for sake of quick-draw. Oh well, it was not like he wasn't gonna take another shot the next moment as the reddish figure on his scanner charged over to him...

And then ... something happened. A sound wave blast straight in the face, it was too sudden and quick to even think of evading. If it were a normal human, without protection, there would have been severe consequences from the sonic boom - possibly ear drums blown off. Fortunately, the helmet provided some protection against it ... some, but not all. Fritz felt like receiving a blow in the head, and his ears started ringing, well one of them that is. It's the gauntlets... I better get rid of those... - the armored nemesis thought as the girl charged in for a melee attack.

And than a flurry of punches came. Punch punch punch punch punch uh oh - all hit the target, but, unfortunately, none did damage. Those fisticuffs simply bounced off the black alloy armor as if she were trying to hit a concrete wall. Sad tactic really. Even medieval armor could have stopped those, so what's to say about state of the art alloy armor he had on? Pshaw, she'd hurt her hands that way... Fritz let out a low chuckle.

- I never liked loud sounds though... - a completely calm and ... serene voice was heard, but no punch came - instead the cyborg took an EMP grenade and ... let it explode in his own hand, at point blank range to the melee attacker. An electric explosion engulfed both, threatening to fry any circuits within the relatively decent radius and zap with an electric surge... Like circuits inside those sonic gauntlets of hers...

Wraith, however, in his omniprotective suit, remained untouched - his circuitry was shielded against such sorts of weaponry, among many things. It seemed it shielded against practically everything short of a cannon blast and super strength, both of which, unfortunately, for his opponent, she didn't have. This was promicing to be a curb-stomp battle. Without further ado, when the girl launched another of her punches at him, he answered with one of his own, throwing pretty much a counter-punch, only amplified by his own cybernetics... And if hit ... gosh it would hurt...

[Black Canary]

His lamentation over the missed shot was without emotion, robotic. A very strange reaction- and one that made Canary even more curious about who this assassin was.

Canary noticed that her opponent's body armor had shielded him somewhat from the blast. Well, that was to be expected, she supposed-sound waves weren't the most effective way to take on an armored foe. But the guy's suit seemed to be rattling- must be a little uncomfortable in there.

She had expected to have the assassin debilitated by the sonic attack, but moved forward without hesitation to confront him when she realized her oppponent was still on his feet. Her fists had no effect, though- not even within the heavy armored gauntlets. She realized she was in trouble.

Then he short-circuited her gauntlets. "Hey those are expensive!" she yelled. Inwardly she realized she needed to find a way to defeat this guy. In the meatime, she kept hammering away, trying to distract him while she worked out a plan.

One of his punches just barely grazed her cheek, and she almost blacked out for a moment. Wow, that was a powerful punch. She couldn't afford to take a direct hit...or it was lights out time.

[Fritz Stahl]

Fritz's EMP grenade maneuver seemed to work - his grenade fried the circuits of the costumed wannabe hero lady, thus leaving her practically weaponless against the armored menace that he represented. It was amusing to see her keep trying to punch through, her whacking resembling that of a moth that tried to get to the source of the light through the glass of a lightbulb. She realized quickly however that this was a pointless effort, the punch that barely missed her head managed to knock some sense into her.

The condition was worsened by the fact they still fought in the middle of the chemo-cloud, which affected only her. Why did she continue to resist? Why she did not run away? Or was her reason paralyzed by fear? Fritz did not know, and, frankly, did not want to find out. In his reddish specter of heat-vision it looked like yet another body for him. A body he'll soon render dead, no exceptions. He was a killer, tried and true, he'd not feel any remorse. At all.

- Let's stop playing games, child, shall we? - he said, voice sounding as unrelenting and dissonant as ever, and upon his whim two pointy and rather long sword-blades went out from his gauntlets, gleaming in the dim light that was able to get through that layer of smoke, and it made the implements of death look even more vicious. The black-armored assassin then went towards the girl, and launched a cross-shaped slice with his twin wrist-blades, aiming to end this in one scything blow...

[Robin]

It hadn't been too long ago that the press had released information about the current standoff taking place on top of the building. News helicopters were approaching, and more and more police were on their way. This man, however, seemed invulnerable. By the look of it, he wasn't going to go down to any kind of ordinary gunfire. It was for that reason that the police didn't stand any chance against him. What was needed here was a hero... a real hero.

Beep~ For only a brief second, such a sound was made beneath the man's feet. From nearly 30 meters away from the higher rooftop of an adjacent building, Robin had nailed her target. Right in between the man's legs, a R-shuriken had been thrown, and in only a couple of seconds, the shuriken would explode right beneath him.

Robin had been watching what was going on from her current location for a while. She knew well enough that the man's armor appeared to be invulnerable to basic attacks such as gunfire. An attack like hers wouldn't kill him, or at least she didn't anticipate that it would, however, the surprise in this attack that would probably come to him in the form of the roof collapsing just beneath him.

BOOM~ The ground would then collapse, hopefully knocking Fritz down, but also, it would very possibly make Black Canary fall a story as well. Either way, it should have interrupted his attack.

[Black Canary]

Canary knew she should run. That was the smart, logical thing to do. She couldn't lay a finger on him. Later, when she had done some experimenting in her basement and risked blowing herself up a few times, she would have something to fight this madman with.


She knew she could do a lot more good by running away and dealing with lesser criminals, but pride wouldn't let her. To her, being a hero meant taking on whatever criminals sprung up in her city, regardless of how powerful they were. She would rather die fighting than become a joke in the eyes of criminals, letting them think she could be intimidated into turning tail on a fight or looking the other way when they committed crimes.

She braced herself to deflect the blades with her gauntlets. Even if she blocked the attack, though, she knew Fritz would win eventually.
She had just resigned herself to death. She had multiple regrets, of course- that her mother would have to be shown her broken body, that she would never finish high school, never go to college, never have sex...and never be able to live up to the legacy of the superheroes that came before.


Then an explosion rocked the rooftop. Canary was fast on her feet, leaping about, and using her grappling hook to swing to another building. She saw Robin and gave the other costumed girl with a bird for a code name. She gave the gaily-dressed girl a thumbs-up. "Timely intervention, Robin!" she called.

[Fritz Stahl]

*YANK!* the blades collided against the girl's gauntlets, locked in close-quarters, as the Wraith and the Black Canary had their one-on-one duel. However, it was not hard to guess who between the two was going to win - the cyborg was stronger, much stronger, and was pretty invulnerable to the Canary's attacks, now that her gauntlets were out of commission for good. Fritz slowly pushed her back, and it was not long before she'd lose balance or something. But before this could happen, just when Fritz was about to use his jet-pack to knock her off her feet, he heard something fall to the ground beneath him with a familiar click. Oh shit... - the only thought went through his mind as the explosion that followed blew a hole in the roof, just where he was standing, sending him down one story below, crashing into a pile of rubble, and even more collapsing on him from above...

Was it the end? No, not really, no. It took more than mere stones falling to even damage such an implacable construct. Able to hold rifle fire, explosions, many things. Collapsing part of the ceiling only scratched the paint and made a few irrelevant dents. With a punch the cyborg knocked through the bigger stone that was lying on him, and stood up. Someone else attacked him... It could have been the police, although the force of explosion was not military-grade. Who could it be? He needed to find that out, but in order to do so he'd have to go back "outside"...

The black figure dashed out of the hole he fell into with one blast of his jetpack, flying out and landing on the roof of an adjacent building. Mid-flight he managed to spot whoever was responsible for this ... minor setback, as well as his current ... prey. The two girls were standing on the roof of an opposite building next to each other. They must have been friends, or colleagues, or whatever. To Fritz it did not matter. The outfit of the second girl was recognizable enough, being famous. Robin. Batman's sidekick. And if she was here, the Gotham's real hero wasn't far behind. Fritz's in-helm radar was constantly scanning the area. The bat would not sneak on him unspotted, so he could deal with these two.

As the enemies faced each other. Fritz did not shoot. He figured he'd have bad luck with those - heroes tended to dodge his handgun bullets all the time, only his Rifle had better results. Karma maybe? Instead, he decided to deliver them ... a different kind of a blow, considering that at least one should have been weakened by poison gas. All he need to do was just ... look at them. Like that time he did with Canary before, but this time not for joke, but for effect. His red eye beneath the helmet glowed brighter, and a psychic-sensitive person could have felt the negative energy around him. And then that weird energy descended upon the two unwitting girls. They were "seen". Someone would feel very sick today... Migraine, head-ache, all other kind of nastiness. Fritz didn't know how it worked, but as long as it did - he wouldn't care anyway...

[Robin]

"Shut up and move!" Robin screamed to Canary who had just thanked her for the rescue. Still, Robin had no intention of stopping and remaining in the man's sights for too long. Ninja training had taught her better than that. Her goal first goal, after all, had only been to help Canary get away.

Getting up here would be hard for the other two, she anticipated, or at least take time. She had a good three stories over the last building the criminal in the suit was on. Quickly, Robin did a flip backward, pulling out three smokebombs and throwing them while she did her flip. This would make it so she'd land behind the smoke. After landing, she quickly switched her mask to infrared. This would allow her to see everything now.

As of now, Robin had a number of plans formulating in her mind. Despite that, she knew what she needed now was action.