Smith International: Traffic Stop Part 2

(Ashton) Ashton flies down to Todd to land on his shoulder and relay it, quietly to him in raven language—fortunately Todd understands because of the language thing the sept has going. "Li is going after the fomori, the others are coming out to check out the cameras. Let's ambush them as they come out."

(Todrick) "Oooh, like Tango and Cash!" Todd replies quietly to the bird, and trots quickly but quietly up to the side of the building to press his back up against the wall by a door. Super stealthy! Well, if you're coming out a door. ...It's gonna suck if the door get kicked open real hard though! I did say earlier that Todd was guarding Ash's found chain, so it's probably ike in his belt loops or something edgy and body guardish like that, so that he can give it back to the corax when he homids up.

(Ashton) Ashton shifts to homid, grabs the chain and lines up by the other side of the door waiting for them to come out to investigate.

(Medina) As Li moves with purpose, he hears that conversation die, suddenly. He hears the footsteps on the other side of that door shift from one side of the room and furniture scrape, his eyes noticing the subtle shift of the light at the foot of the door, that tiny strip barely betraying that whatever lies behind it, moved close enough to the door to shift the light, and then the occlusion disappears.

It's that tension in the back of your head, that sense of presence, like a shifting air at the nape of your neck, somebody watching you. As Li yanks the door handle and immediately sidesteps, his paranoia pays off instantly.

BOOM!

The shotgun blast explodes through the doorway, exactly where Li would have been standing… "I've got more shells than you've got luck, lizard!" …the man’s fingers are talons, eyes reflecting light in ways human eyes shouldn’t.

Combat Round 1

(Li is inside the building on the second floor, in the hallway. He just opened the door to the third room (where the fomori is) and dodged a shotgun blast. He's now facing off with the fomori who is behind a metal desk for cover. Ashton, you and Todrick both are outside the same building at ground level, positioned by one side of the entrance door. You're homid form with a chain, waiting to ambush people coming out to investigate the camera issues. Todrick, you're on the other side of the same door as Ashton, also waiting to ambush anyone who comes out. It seems y'all are positioned to intercept human guards who you think will come rushing out due to the gunshot.)

(Medina) In the adjacent room upstairs, one of the trio of coyotes grabs his weapon, moves to the doorway of that room, and call out: "QUE PASA?" to get a sitrep. He advances down the hallway, not waiting for an answer, heavy pistol ready, using the wall for cover.

Li can see as the Fomor with the shotgun falls back toward the window, leveling the shotgun on Li. It's a tactical shotgun, so there's plenty more shells to fire before he has to ka-chack.

(Ashton) Ashton moves in. "I'm gonna try to get the jump on them." He says softly to Todd, as he moves into the building.

(Medina) Coyote B exits into the hallway, taking cover and sighting the stairs with a heavy pistol

Upstairs Guard slips into partial cover with weapon drawn, ready to back Coyote A by opening fire toward Li.

Ashton slots into the shadow of a steel engaged column and times his advance; Todrick stumbles right on up, drawing attention away from Ashton (who remains unseen).

(Todrick) Todrick moves to follow Ash into the building and up the steps walking in that slight ducked-down way you get when you for some reason think that being 1 foot shorter will be safer, and for once forgetting about Miller, his bestest buddy who's gonna be best man at Todd's wedding (the gradually increasing friendship declarations match the guilt levels, see). He's so mother fuckin keyed up and locked in and ooh, lookit that ass. NO! Focus Todd, focus WAY TOO MUCH, Todd, leave Ash's booty out of this!

(Ashton) Todd draws attention to himself, so Ash does his best to take advantage of that and get the drop on someone. He slips in quietly, unseen, gripping his chain and getting ready.

(Medina) BOOM! The Fomor fires off another round as he launches himself backwards with an uncanny mercurial commad. The report of the gun cracks in the steel and concrete cage of a building, the painful sound tearing into the ears and reverberating violently against your skull. Hot, searing 12 gauge shot tears through Li's flesh, even despite his scaled hide, as the clawed Fomor retreats to the window.

Meanwhile, a panicked mag-dump from partial cover shreds walls but fails to connect!

Combat Round 2

(Medina) As shotgun bullets fly, and claws and teeth clash, that guard's magazine falls onto the hallway floor with a clatter. His hands are trembling as he makes a break for the stairwell. He yells in Spanish into the radio. Whatever he says is a chopped, panicked something or other. Probably telling everybody to run.

A living nightmare given flesh, the dragon's obsidian scales catch the harsh fluorescent light as he flows forward with serpentine grace, and by the time his prey even registers the golden fire burning in those ancient eyes, it's too late. Hands of Red Silk's jaws impale the fomor's torso with a wet, crushing sound of ribs splintering and organs rupturing, razor-edged fangs punching through corrupted flesh and bone alike, tear ragged channels of blood through what was once human. Bloody ichor from within the disgusting creature sprays across the makeshift command center, splattering shipping schedules and radio equipment as the dragon's bite finds the thing's spine. His shotgun clatters uselessly to the concrete floor as its taloned hands spasm, blood and fascia weeping out through the destroyed remains of his body.

Three bullets fly overhead, whistling as they shoot past Hands of Red Silk before bursting straight into the concrete, one ricocheting and bursting through the window, which spiderwebs on impact.

And then, SLAM! The industrial door is yanked shut, the olive-skinned man in dark street clothing whipping around to make a break for it.

The contracted security guard in uniform flies down the hall, and Ahston's chain smacks him in the head. He stumbles, but he doesn't tumble - intead he tears through on the way down the stairs, while Todrick surges forward. Bang! The report of yet another pistol erupts, and Todrick feels no pain in the controlled adrenaline-dump he channels. Hell, he barely notices he's hit, if he notices at all - something warm and wet just jabbed him in the seat of his shoulder.

Combat Round 3

Coyote A, still rattled from the dragon, yanks back into the corridor, pops a hurried shot at Ashton, and ducks for brief cover, clearly angling to disengage next round. The upstairs guard bolts outright, pounding for the exit. By the time the chaos crests, he's bolted through the door and out of the building. The shotgunner is finished. Hands-of-Red-Silk tears him down and, job done, slips into a form a little less apocalyptic before sprinting to rejoin the others.

On the landing, Todrick and Coyote B both go low at the same time, the coyote's panicked counter finds purchase, and Todrick's attempt slips into some kind of ambiguously gay little close-quarters tangle that hurts pride more than flesh. ...Until in a spasm of Rage-fueled fury, it suddenly hurts flesh too, as Todrick draws from a well of Furyand lands a blow that leaves the man reeling.

Down the hall, Ashton breaks after the fleeing guard and swings for a second blindside attempt, but in he whiffs the sprint and swirl of bodies, only to be clipped by wild gunfire emptied from the rattled Coyote who had just ducked for brief cover. The Corax takes the rounds and keeps moving, bleeding but on his feet. Ashton tries to refresh his mental map in the background, but the chaos is too distracting.

Combat Round 4

Coyote A, shaking with adrenaline, keeps up the retreat while shooting. He throws two hurried shots at Ashton, one a deliberate headshot that grazes and rips open Ashton's cheek, the second - click. The pistol stovepipes and jams, forcing him to clear it before he can fire again.

Down the stairs, the upstairs guard sprints for the exit, radio barking orders as he runs. Ashton chases, splits his focus to 'feel the field' for a heartbeat through Gaia's gifts, reaching spiritually out towards those twelve faint captives' rhythms and see if they are still where he sensed them. They are. He commits to his pursuit, flinging the chain low and decisive so that it captures the guard's ankles and yanks him off balance at the doorway.

Upstairs, Coyote B is momentarily stunned. Todrick pounces, first with a rushed body shot that lands awkwardly, then with raw werewolf stubbornness and a proper tackle. The second drive has form: hips under, shoulders through! Drive with the hips, Tod! He crushes B straight into the floor with a decisive finish to the exchange, and his victim goes down hard, not dead, but dazed and in pain.

Meanwhile, Li bolts from the room with the corpse left behind. He snatches up the dropped gun, and barrels toward the fleeing shooters, shouting for surrender as he closes the distance.

Combat Resolves

(Todrick) Todd was focused! SO FOCUSED! Specifically on 'get that guy', and he *did* get that guy! Like Todd is not even remotely the best boxer around, but god damn it he got him after a minute! And then... .... Where the hell is everybody? Todd sits up on a beat up dude, and realizes he's completely alone (aside from the dick bag he's sitting on). And bleeding on. Ow. At least it's not a LOT of blood. Tis but a flesh wound! He peeks in the room, no Li. He hears commotion, and ah ha! There they are, outside. He grabs B's collar and just sort of drags the guy behind him, down the stairs go fo catch up with his broheims.

(Medina) Bullets fly as much as chains and hands. Drenched in blood - only some of it his own! - Li emerges to see Todrick take out his day on the dark-haired cartel member, after what has devolved devolved into a very awkward wrestling match that the Philodox has decided will come to an /end/. Meanwhile Ahston is outside, chasing down the guard, who falls to the ground and now rolls to try and wrestle and kick off the chains on his legs. In that instant he's prone, but it's clear he'll scramble like a fawn once he's up. Ashton, for all his efforts, resembles a zombie apocalypse extra, before the gifts of gaia start to mend him, fasica and tissue popping and bubbling as he bashes this guy. Todrick has dropped the man who smells too strongly of cologne, and as for Li's demands of surrender - well, he's yelling something in spanish, and with the displayed palms of the one that Todrick /just/ beat the shit out of, it sounds conciliatory.

(Ashton) Ashton managed to entangle the guard's leg, and got shot IN THE FACE for his efforts. When the gun jams, he takes advantage of the situation and tackles the guy fully to the ground and punches him until he stops thinking thoughts. He's heaving, out of breath, and looking around to see if anyone else is still up and in need of punching. He stands, a little shakey, and makes his way toward the captives, if there's no one else up and about trying to shoot him.

(Medina) The warehouse floor is quiet, now. So is the complex at large. As the rush of combat ends, Ashton is able to make sense of what currents of life rustle about him like fidgeting wind. He'd only been able to concentrate in the rush on the main point of his concern: those 12 captives. He can tell exactly where Miller lay, and of course, where these two battered coyotes are. He can tell the dogs have been put away in building A, where one of the guards on patrol that Ahston had previously sensed hasn't even moved - maybe it's not his circus, maybe he has better sense... But he's not stationary. It's a whiff of his presence.

The captives are yet to be visible, but Ahston knows where they are. They're inside that third, 'derelict' building, which stands in the night like a neglected gravestone, cracked, covered in dirt and overgrowth, silent.

(Li) Li's gun is trained on the surrendering man, nodding. "Tell your compatriats to surrender. We're not here to end you, just the operations. I am certain your boss will bail you out after the fact." Of course, Li knows that's not likely to happen for them - or if they are bailed out, they will face worse than what they offer. "Let's bind them up, and check on the captives. Make sure they are medically tended to." He says.

(Ashton rolls Gnosis + -Wound vs 8 for 3 successes)

(Medina) The man Li centers his gun on has a face aged by a hard life and the weight of harder choices, something defiant and yet dull in his carob-colored eyes, something fundamentally missing. He's dressed in dark street clothes, nobody 'special' to look at, a man who personally intended to be forgotten should he draw attention. His chin lifts in an unspoken challenge at Li, resentment hardening his stare. "If they're smart, they're gone," he says, in accented English. "I don't want /no/ more trouble, /I/ won't do nothing." Meanwhile, the other guy, well, he's gotta find his left testicle, after what Tod fucking finally did.

(Todrick) Todd whips out the duct tape! Like with that really dramatic stretch the strip out 'shits about to get super weird and what happens in Houston stays in Houston' kind of way. As long as our beat to shit and or scared shitless homies don't do anything funny, this'll only take a minute, and then he's gotta go get him some Miller Time. Specifically healing Miller and getting him out of the Suburban. It's only been like... a minute or two since he got donkey punched, he's gonna be FIIIIIIIIINE. He's gonna be fine.

(Medina) Ashton makes short work of the door...

The smell hits first. Urine, feces, vomit. Something worse underneath it all. Fear-sweat mixed with the ghosts of this building's past life, chemicals and solvents that have soaked into concrete and human skin alike.

Twelve people, Ashton's supernatural senses had detected. What he hadn't sensed was the condition they're in.

One skeleton of a woman sits gaunt against the far wall, zip-tied to a rusted pipe that runs along the wall, her eyes tracking movement that isn't there. Tremors in her hands, pupils dilated and unresponsive. The plastic restraints have cut deep grooves into her wrists. She doesn't look up when the door opens. Probalby hasn't looked up in days.

A man tries to stand when he hears footsteps, but his legs buckle. There are red lines of a blood infection crawling up toward his shoulders. He needs a hospital, not rescue. His hand finds the wall, and he musters strength as he sees new faces he can't possibly trust. The chain around his ankle keeps him tethered to the concrete pillar.

Three of them are unconscious. One woman's breathing is shallow and irregular.

The others cluster together in the corner, speaking in whispers. They've been here long enough to develop a survival hierarchy, to know which of their captors hits hardest, to ration the moldy bread and murky water. They've stopped believing rescue will come. When armed strangers burst through that door, their first assumption isn't salvation. The fear hangs in the air: these people must think something has gone wrong and they're about to be executed.

(Ashton) Ashton walks back out to Li and Todrick, and looks...torn. "We should call emergency services for them, they need to be treated and it's...beyond me." He considers. "Todd can try to heal some of them but. It's more than he'll be able to handle at once. 12 people all close to death. Can maybe get the worst of them, but..." He shrugs. "They need more help than we can provide."

(Li) Li nods. "I have someone to contact, yes. Heal who we can, tend to all - get them a bit more stable, then the medics will come in." His face is a stoic mask, not one of anger or fear - but sympathy. He does not want them to suffer. "I will make the call, but we need to get them a little more stable. The police will be here quickly once I call them, and they will come with medics."

(Todrick rolls Intelligence + Empathy + 3 + -Wound vs 3 for 8 successes.)

(Todrick) The Todd brings Miller! Now all our guys are in one place. He steals Miller's wallet before doing a little lay on hands. He hand the wallet over to Li and says, "He can go down with the rest, or you can convince him to play hero and take the credit so we don't have to." He winces when he hears about the victims though and goes to follow Ash to see to those poor guys. He can get like 4 more healings out, so he's gonna have to pick the worst off.

(Medina) Todrick moves with grim efficiency through the aftermath, his hands already glowing with the soft green light of Gaia's healing touch. First, he tends to Miller's unconscious form. The security guard's breathing is shallow, that trickle of blood from his ear a stark reminder of how badly things can go. But the healing energy flows through the man's skull, mending the trauma to brain tissue, stopping the internal bleeding, bringing color back to the guard's pale face... Miller's breathing deepens, evens out - he'll wake up with a headache and gaps in his memory imminently, but he'll wake up whole. Then Todd moves to the real horror show inside the condemned building....

(Ashton) Ashton moves in with Todd and points out the worst cases, and gives him everything he can give to empower him to heal more of them. Then he leaves, not wanting to look at them anymore, and being more interested in discovering what he can about this whole operation by looking through files upstairs. <OOC> Ashton says, "Right, we killed the cameras but definitely want to take the tapes"

(Li) Li offers up some of his energy to Todd and his totem to help those in need. Then he sets about tidying up the scene and gathering the intel they need. His face is a mask while doing so, focused solely on the task as opposed to the anger at what is happening to these people.

(Medina) The smell hits them like a physical blow, but they have been through worse. In fact, especially for Todrick, maybe those very images of that triage months ago flash through his mind, snapshots of him powering through the searing pain of a ruined face as he works with broken bodies. As Todrick mose from from victim to victim with methodical determination, assisted by Ashton and Li as they channel their own energy and intent to flow with Tod's own, he mends wrists raw from restraints, he stabilizes the sepsis trying to kill the man on the pillar, he stems the internal bleeding...

The group can't undo the trauma, can't cure malnutrition, nor the fear. How to explain to people the unexplainable? Even if you could speak their language...

They watch him with the frozen distrust of a rabbit around prey. One of them flattens herself against the wall and cries, cries, and cries, voiceless sobs that have learned how pointless it is to beg fer mercy, and even as nothing bad happens, she waits for the other shoe to drop.

Even Gaia's touch can only do so much against human cruelty. But it's enough to keep them alive until proper help arrives, enough to give them a fighting chance at recovery instead of death in a Houston warehouse.

(Todrick)

Horrifying murder beast of doom Todd might be, but his bag is making people feel better when and where he can. Last time during triage he didn't have the ability to heal and it was a whole helplessness thing while giving last rites to the dead instead. He's made some changes since then, helplessness sucks.

He's gentle with the poor trafficking victims, keeping his hands visible and moving slowly, smoothly, so as not to scare these poor people any more than they already are. His touch is gentle and the genuine care is written on his pretty boy face as clearly as it's in the way he touches these poor folk. It's not much, trauma and pacifying drugs and such don't really mix well with knitting flesh and bone back together, but it's a LITTLE bit better, enough to give a little bit of comfort to these people. There's a pause to hug Ash too and steal some of his freely given mojo before getting back to work.

Once they're okay(ish), he joins the other two in getting the skinny around here.

(Medina) Miller's eyes flutter open slowly, pupils contracting against the harsh security lighting. He tries to sit up, groaning as the world tilts slightly...

"What the hell..." he mutters, one hand going to the back of his skull where a tender spot reminds him of... something?? The memory comes back in fragments. The Chinese guy, the muscle, something about checking the car for a bomb....

He looks around, disoriented. The smell hits him. He blinks. Blearily, he looks over, none too far from the interior of the derelict building. The condemned building that's supposed to be empty, that he's been told never to go near, that doesn't officially exist on his patrol route.

Miller struggles to his feet, reaching for his radio, but it's gone, and he sways a touch as he tries to focus on what's inside.

"Jesus Christ," he whispers, taking a step toward the building. Then another. When he reaches the doorway he stops cold. The scene inside defies his ability to process it immediately: as Li, Todrick and Ashton wrap up their work, he takes in the smell of human waste, fear, and infections as if for the very first time. "Mother of God," he breathes, the words a prayer and a curse all at once.

Off-screen resolution

Li directs the group to... - Convince Miller to turn over a new life, turn in these thugs and then help him "rehabilitate" using my contacts/allies/money. - Get the info on the operations so we can follow up on the rest of it, while leaving it for the cops to realize the scope. - Cleanse the room with the fomor and disappear the body. - Contact his allies/contacts to get the cops and medics here pronto - as promised. - Scrub any surveilance footage before leaving.