Log:Powerless in Chinatown, Scene 4

Powerless in Chinatown 2021/02/19 	 Chen Dark Horse Felix Kid Tengu Kihzra Lennox Union

4

Nearly a week has passed since One Man Army, Microwave and Silkworm (in her cocoon) were attacked and deprived of their powers. Precision has declared that she can do no more for Silkworm, and the coccon has been taken to the hospital to see if Western medicine can help at all. Things in Chinatown remain tense, and Lee's metas still travel round in groups, but no more has been seen of the attacks, yet... 

KT makes another pass around Chinatown, and heads to a more centralized location as 'Katie' while sending a message to Evan.

The message says:

<>

Evan thinks about what he's learned about the gun in the last week. And how to apply it to his own creations. He does wish he was better at biochem and alien biotech, but, well, only so many hours in a day since the time travel experiments are going nowhere, or rather, nowhen, at present. He heads to the meeting at the South Gate, making certain to show up as Felix this time.

Kihzra is there with her kid, who must be about a year old now, on her knee.

The child seems rather interested in Kihzra's bag, from which the hilt of her sword can be seen emerging.

Lennox arrives in his long black leather duster, with a satchel of his own. The latter is heavy with a book, two feet tall by a foot and a half wide, leather and wood -- made in the /old/ style. He gets his cappucino and biscotti, then comes over: he'd noticed Kihzra, if not her weapon, upon his entry, having paused to perform his cold-eyed 'who would I have to kill first' analysis. << Warrior, >> he greets her in her own language, strangely accented though it may be. << Your heir? >> The latter is accompanied by a gesture at the child.

"Tjasivju, Rennox. <> The child reaches out his hand toward Lennox when Lennox gestures at him. <> says Kihzra proudly.

Dark Horse spots the person he believes is following Chen, and he thinks...it might be the same person who planted the camera in the alley. Too much of a match...and too much of a coincidence to be...well, a coincidence. He waits until there's an opportune time to confront the guy somewhat privately before dropping down behind him to street level.

Dark Horse comes up behind the guy, getting nice and close before he says in Mandarin, << I need to have a word with you. >>

"Tjasivju," the dark one replies and, after putting plates on the table at an empty seat, squats down to greet the child. << The clan increases, >> he says with some approval. If given the chance, he will take the young boy up, holding and bouncing him a little as he and his mother speak of things -- likely the history of her land as well as herself, how she came to this place. Though Lennox will make the occasional linguistic error, by courtesy he'll keep it in her native tongue.

The guy starts and looks about. "Sorry, I don't speak -" he gets out, before it registers he's talking to someone in costume.

Dark Horse steps in closer, and says in English, "I said...I need to have a word with you."

Kihzra doesn't mind letting Lennox play with the child. Lennox gets a nasty surprise, though, when the kid squeezes his finger. "Carefurr!" laughs Kihzra. "Is strong, rike his father!"

What about?" says the guy to Dark Horse, managing to conceal his nervousness.

Dark Horse blinks, "I want to know why you're following One Man Army over there." He waits a moment, and then lets the second shoe drop, "And why you set up a camera to ambush him in an alley."

Kihzra is open enough about her background - that she was exiled here magically because the wizard Ghravvruhs (Ice Wolf) was afraid of a prophecy about her. Because she's the daughter of Pfarok, whose distant ancestor was King Brun Sorcererbane. <>

Lennox exclaims at the fracture of his finger. "Ow!!" That is, of course, a universal sound. After recovering his equilibrium, he reclaims the finger, flexing his hand -- because though it broke, he is healed by that point. << A powerful heritage indeed. But what led to you joining with a gang of bandits? >>

"Sorry, you must have me confused with someone else," say the man flatly, brazening it out.

Dark Horse tilts his head, "No. I'm sure that I'm correct. And you're a terrible liar. You really don't want me to reveal you to Lee's folks." He mentions it specifically to indicate that he's NOT with them. Maybe it'll get the guy to open up.

Kihzra replies, <>

The man tries surruptiously to do something with his wristwatch...

Dark Horse tries to grab the man's forearm and keep him from touching the watch, figuring it might be a communicator...or a teleporter.

Kihzra take the child back, on finding that Lennox is as fragile as are many civilised folk.

Lennox nods in understanding. A mate will have that effect. << A more subtle banditry, to be sure, >> He says, extracting from a pocket on one thigh a metal baton. The nested construction of the steel ASP should be able to withstand the strength of the toddler. << Have you had any thoughts as to who might be behind the recent misfortunes? >>

If it's communicator, it's huge, so teleporter seems likely!

KT keeps Katie's head on a swivel, eyes open for Felix/Evan or some of the related cast of criminals involved in this case. She'd rather just let them gobble each other up in their cold war of attrition- but the risk of the public being harmed in this flare up and the existence of a power-wiping serum being used againsts local metahumans is too much for this contingent of #CodeDark to let slide idly.

Once Felix arrives he and Katie chat- sharing information back and forth so they can strategize on their next steps.

After a few hushed whispers they each break off in different directions- Katie, taking a hard turn to disappear around a corner and hop up to the rooftop highway.

Lennox is less fragile than most, but recovers far more swiftly than any!

Kihzra ponders. <&lt;I think, it is someone new. Not Pride. Pride would have been ready. Not Emperor of China. If he wants war, it would be a bigger attack. If he wants no war, he must have more stealthy people.>>

Chen finally notices the DH interaction. She approaches, and sniffs. She memorised the smell of the attachers and the scene trail of the camera planter in the alley where ONA was attacked.

Chen reaches out to grab abd incapacitate the person DH is facing. "He's the guy who planted the camera, Dark Horse," she confirms.

Dark Horse goes ahead and slides the watch off the man's wrist in a practiced motion. "And he was trying to teleport away, I believe."

Lennox makes a noncommittal noise. << It does not seem like something the Phoenix would do, >> he agrees, << and the rest of your points are well-taken. I think it is more of a field test. >>. He sips his Cappuccino and thinks. << The real question is whether the powers are suppressed, removed, or taken entirely. >>

"Shit - a shapeshifter!" exclaims the man. In a now-I-get-it kind of way.

KT moves along the highway overhead at rapid speed-leaping & bounding until she spots a familiar costumed hero- Dark Horse.

She smirks and leaps to see what he's mixed up in. Her instincts & timing pay off as things seem to intensify quickly.

The shout of a shapeshifter staggers her approach until she realizes he's not talking about her.

Chen nods even as her arms extend in the grab attempt. "That's right. And I've been really hoping to encounter you."

<> says Kihzra. <>

Dark Horse nods slowly and says to the guy he has confronted. "So...who are you working for?"

Chen manages to get her arms round the guy, who knows himself to be hopelessly outclassed. "Seriously?" he says to Dark Horse. "Do you think whoever's behind this is going to show his face to me?"

KaTie flips down to ground level and joins the fun.

"I should have just stuck with you guys- I've been wandering around town all week looking for these guys."

Chen nods to Dark Korse. "So have I. Dark Horse was the one who spotted this perp."

Dark Horse nods, "I was following Chen."

<< Very, >> Lennox agrees.

"It seems that was wiser than my plan." KaTie says with a nod. "Felix was able to crack the dart gun he picked up. Let's jsut say the only thing special about it was what was in the syringe. The rest was jsut a custom print job. No tags, labels or anything identifiable. Top tier work from that angle." She shares, hoping to be brought up to date with their own investigations- not aware that she caught the best part live.

The guy goes quiet, maybe hoping you'll take him at his word.

Dark Horse tilts his head and says to the guy, "I don't know what I'd expect. How about you tell us what you know. Or how you'd contact him?"

Chen nods to Katie. "Yeah. The drug was special alright. Special enough to put me on the floor. I'd tell you all I know that you don't. Zitch. Until now I'd gotten nowhere."

Dark Horse says, "It's from the Guild. That's all I know."

KaTie nods with a thankful and very human expression! "Excellent- well then, by all means, don't let me slow you two down." She says, happy to play backup and see what these 'nups have going on. Consideirng one's detective skills & the others mastery of form she's invested enough in their success.

"How about I say nothing? I figure if I squeal I won't get paid," says the guy.

Lennox and Kihzra turn their conversation to less sensitive topics, and in time she must depart. He decamps to one of the comfortable leather recliner?s, to open and peruse his tome.

The next few days finds the black immortal prowling through Chinatown once again; alleys receive particular attention, which results in him coming upon the interrogation in progress. Sauntering up, Lennox regards the captive technician. "Caught one, huh?"

Dark Horse shrugs, "I suspect there's a mentalist who might be forceful about looking in your mind. If you don't squeal, you might get...hurt." Not that he would actually hurt the guy, but the odds are good that Lee's folks would.

Dark Horse takes a look at the watch in the meantime. "I guess we'll have to figure out this tech in the meantime. I suspect this might be used to figure out where it teleports to. Or...I could use it. And then report where I end up."

Dark Horse waves to Lennox as he shows up.

Chen says, "Dark Horse, that's his teleporter. His get out of jail card?"

Dark Horse nods to Chen, "Yeah, it's a teleporter. Which will go...someplace. Probably coded into it."

Chen nods, "Actually I was thinking about where that leaves this guy. Alone. In Chinatown. With Tim Lee's guys. Beastary will spot him as fast as you did. And now he has no fast way out. I guess if he doesn't talk there's nothing we can do but let loose."

The guy squirms. He's heard stories about some of Lee's lot... "Look, if you use the teleporter you'll find out about all I know anyway! That goes to this safehouse. It's where I met them, where they gave me the teleporter. If I have anything to tell them, I leave a message there. That's all I know, I swear!

Lennox listens to the update, and considers. "I would think it wise to be able to go immediately to the support of whom ever uses it. Teleport to the teleported."

KaTie sucks her teeth at that. "That's it? You should probably come up with a bit more than that. I mean, we've already got the teleporter." She reasons to the man while raising a friendly hand to Lennox at his arrival.

"How do the cameras work?" asks Lennox. "Do you monitor them, or does someone else?"

Dark Horse nods to the guy and then at Lennox's question. "Also, where's the safehouse in question? I mean, you might know hte address?"

"Someone else - they just told me to install them, and gave them to me. I say them - there were a couple of guys there. Grey body armour, couldn't see their faces."

Chen says, "You probably know what the other weapons being carried do. Where you get the suits from. Oh, lots of thing."

Lennox finally nods courteous greetings to Dark Horse, Kid Tengu, and Chen. He can be a little ... focused ... at times.

"Well... maybe I do know a bit more... but if I talk... I'm going to need reassurances...."

Lennox eyes the technicia. "No," he muses, "I do not think so. He was hired for one of two reasons: as a cut out if caught, or because he has a skill set their group lacks."

Dark Horse raises a brow, "Reassurances of what?"

"Um... that you'll let me go.. and not tell the Triads about me..."

"Survival," suggests Lennox.

"Oh, and not let it get back to Rent-a-Goon that I squealed. I mean, that's a real career-killer!"

KaTie shifts into the Technician/Goon. "Don't worry, they'll never know you didn't complete the job." He says with a mischevious smile.

Dark Horse nods slowly, "I'm okay with letting you go, if you tell us what you know." He then looks to the others. "What do you all thing?"

The KTechnician nods to Dark Horse. "Fine with me."

Chen shrugs, "I'm happy to let him go. After all he has only been part of a plot that could have left Chinatown a ruin with hundreds if not thousands dead." She silently add in her mind 'From a few miles up'.

Lennox looks at the guy. "He already has. I suggest letting him finish, and letting him go. Give him his gizmo back. We know where the trap is, so ..." But then he smiles at the tech. "I suggest you report a close call, tell them you aren't doing it again, and move to England. Or Beiruit."

The doesn't seem reassured by CHen. "All I did was install some cameras! And then later they told me to follow - you, I guess."

Dark Horse nods. "So...what else do you know? It sounds like no one is objecting to letting you go."

"Um - the address, like you said!" He names a house on the Upper East Side.

Lennox snorts "Scouts are always the same: 'I did nothing.' You kill scouts first chance you get -- or capture them. Honestly, I say turn him over to the police. I know a detective."

The guy shuts his mouth again, firmly.

"I thought he'd have something juicier. I'm with him. Since I could just take the teleporter and meet you guys there anyway." The KTech says. "What else do you have to trade? I mean- you were wrapped up in all of this pretty tight. Scout or not- I can't imagine someone running around with your face being all helpful and upstanding is good for your business anyway. So I wouldn't think you've got /any/ leverage here."

Dark Horse nods to the guy, and makes a note of the address. "Thank you."

"I told you I don't know much! Come on! What can I tell you?"

He thinks. "OK. I can tell you he hired me through Rent-a-Goon. New account, but that proves nothing. Pays cash, pays well. Oh, and those cameras were sweet. Real nice tech."

"You wouldn't happen to have an extra one of those on hand would ya? I bet that'd make me forget this shape pretty easy." The KTech says cooly.

Chen morphs to a hardass looking late teen from Harrisburg judging by clothing and gang colors. "You're leaving the area, right?" she says to the perp. "So as a favor you found them a replacement. Okay."

"Um, I don't have a camera on me, but I can tell you where you can get a couple! They had me instal some in Bridgend, outside that gym, Steel's. Far as I know, those ones are still working!"

Dark Horse nods. "That sounds...useful to know."

To Chen he says, "And yeah, I'm leaving the area!" . o O ( I knew I should have left CB ages back! But 'stay in CB' they said. 'There's always work for goons in CB,' they said... )

"Yup- Sounds like exactly the thing that'd keep me from keeping you from volunteering with a bunch of heroes and randomly pointing on street corners to thugs and the general criminal element while standing in groups of known heroes." KTech reasons.

"Oh - I guess maybe one more thing - maybe it's nothing..."

"One of the guys in grey was talking to his boss on his PDA once - I guess it was the boss - anyway, he called him 'sir' not 'boss' or 'Dr Massacre' or that kind of thing, 'sir'. Not in a military way, I mean, just... I dunno, respectful. Seemed kind of unusual."

Dark Horse nods slowly. "Hmm. That is...interesting."

He dries up again. Looks like maybe he really can't think of anything more this time.

KT looses the shape of the technician and resumes KaTie-form. "Quite. Thank you, Mister." She offers with a smile, confident Felix can find the cameras now that they know where to look for them.

"Can I go now?"

Dark Horse nods slowly. "Final question for hte group...what about hte teleporter watch?"

Union says, "Voice-activated?"

"Please tell me I get to use the teleporter." KaTie says quietly. "I'll walk right out and call you guys. Or Union can do her..." She points to her head and waggles her fingers.

He actually looks embarrassed. "I wasn't given that till this mission. So if... this happened I could get away. And no, you've got to press down hard on the face with your palm, they said."

Chen looks to KaTie. "How small can you shrink to?"

"Under what conditions were you supposed to use it?" asks Lennox.

"Uh, emergencies," says the guy, like that's obvious.

Chen has a thought. "You know, if I was a vill and wanted to make sure my cut-out WAS a cut out that 'teleporter' would be filled with explosives."

Union says, "Or pre-programmed to drop you in the middle of the ocean - the Arctic ocean."

Lennox's eyebrows lift. "And never be able to work with Rent-a-Thug again?"

"I don't know- I've never tried to /shrink/ before. Not sure I can... why?" KaTie asks, wondering what Chen has in mind.

Dark Horse nods. "That's a good point. It's probably safer for you, sir, if we hang onto it."

Union says, "There's always HenchJob. Or Minions.com."

Chen says, "You think rent-a-thug cares about losses if the money is good enough?"

The guy goes white at this suggestion. That he might be double-crossed by his employer hadn't occurred to him. But then, that's typical of goons. If they had any imagination, they might be vils themselves!

"Absolutely," Lennox responds immediately.

Chen changes and shrinks, "Then you get to be the goon and I get to be your winter coat." By the time she's finished speaking she is a winter coat.

"Ooh- Chen, you're so fashionable." KaTie says with a grin, moving to slip on Chen in her new winter-weather form.

"Want to link up?" Union asks the others.

The goon says, "Right," to Dark Horse. "I'll go now, if that's ok...."

Dark Horse nods to Chen, "Go ahead...let him go."

"I'm in." KaTie says as she shifts into a goon with a particularly gruff & offputting countenance. "It'll make telling you guys where we end up easier." He steps to teh side to give the Goon a path clear of shapeshifters.

The goon walks away hurriedly, wondering if there's much call for goons in Hawai'i. Or anywhere warmer, really....

Union reaches out with her mind to the others...

"Not quite. Go have a drink," Lennox tells the guy. "Place called Sentries, Upper East Side as well. Tell the bartender Lennox told you to have a Laphroaig and sit tight. Then have the scotch she gives you and sit tight. Until we're through this, your neck is on the line."

Chen whispers to Katie, "The name is Dasker. You're with the Harrisburg Hellions. That ID is covered deeper than a coal mine."

"Got it." KT says, shifting a bit more- taking on a few details in Hellions' colors.

Dark Horse nods slowly. "So...what's the plan? Just head to hte location? Have someone, like say...Chen, disguise themselves and walk in front of teh cameras outside of Steel's Gym?"

Ever heard a winter coat speaking before. "Copy who? There's metas in and out of Steels all day. If they haven't acted they are probably after someone specific. Up to now that's been scouts and info types. Or if they wanted the jackpot, my aunt."

"To the address," suggests Lennox. "Work forward."

"I say we teleport in, loo around while linked up. Then we step outside and figure out where we are so the calvary can keep Chen and I from being eliminated for trespassing." 'Dasher'/KT says. He really wants to use the teleporting watch!