A Gem of a Proposal

It was a hot and sunny afternoon in the Los Angeles suburbs, Today was a very momentous occasion for the Don Bryant Museum of Natural Wonder, It had just procured its newest crown jewel, a large jade statuette of a Chinese lung dragon, it was fully a foot long with diamond scales and ruby eyes and a gold flake tail and mane, it was truly a beautiful and exquisite piece of art, a marvel. Ivan like exquisite.

The building was heavily secured, they had just moved it to its place in the heavily fortified viewing room and were making the finishing touches on ensuring the prize was safe when Ivan strolled through the front door, it was a typical day, people bustling to and fro from exhibit to exhibit, he pushed his glasses up higher on his face and strolled over to a small collection of ruby's and sapphire's, he eyed them casually, taking in his environment, marking security, mapping access points and formulating his plan for the real prize. His heart was already starting to pick up its pace ever so slightly, he relished it.

He strolled over to the viewing room but his path was blocked by two large security guard, he leaned around them to peer inside the room, putting on his best act of a curious tourist, he pointed in the direction of the statuette "Whats in there?" he asked innocently, the larger guard snorted back a slight laugh, he seemed about six and a half feet tall and was more fat then muscle, his partner was about half a foot shorter then him and was the opposite, both had an air of intimidation, which didn't faze Ivan in the slightest "The new exhibit is whats going on, just a fancy statue, off limits right now, come back in about three days and it'll be open for public viewing" the shorter one said mechanically, obviously having reiterated these words time and time again that day, Ivan smiled inwardly.

He wandered around for a few moments afterward, lazily gazing at exhibits, though his attention was fixed on the larger guard, who showed the almost imperceptible signs that told Ivan he would need to be using the bathroom sometime soon, moments before the guard Ivan nonchalantly made his way into the men's restroom, the guard followed him in as he had expected, Ivan busied himself with washing his hands while he tensed himself for the moment that was about to come, the man walked in and stood in front of the urinal "Enjoying the mus-" he began, but was cut short when his head promptly went slamming and then going through the stall wall next to him, he dropped easily enough and with one deft movement Ivan ripped the ventilation grating off and tossed the man's limp body up into the shaft, his strength had of course assisted him in such a task.

He walked out of the bathroom and hurriedly walked over to the lone guard with a concerned expression on his face "Your friend seems to be sick, he doesn't look well at all and he's sure making a mess of the stall" he said, this may have raised a red flag in the lone guards head if it wasn't for a disbelief in a smaller gentleman such as himself taking out such a large security guard and his act had allayed a lot of the concern as well, the guard rushed to the bathroom and froze in his tracks as he stepped inside, Ivan wrapped his arms around the mans neck, swept his leg out from under him and slammed him to the tile floor before the man could even so much as blink, he too was out like a light, a visitor of the museum had the misfortune to walk into the bathroom, so Ivan had no choice but to deliver a high kick to the man's jaw, he sighed, so much trouble for such a small thing, but his blood was pumping now and he needed that statuette, he left the bodies where they lay and began his trek to the room, he stood in the doorway, smile plastered firmly on his face, he strode through it, he walked briskly up to the case and smashed it in with his elbow, the workers around him only staring in disbelief, he grabbed the statuette and began jogging towards the back window.

The alarm suddenly blared to life. Ivans smile grew ear to ear. He broke into a sprint. He smashed through the opposite window and fell to the ground below, rolling to break his small fall and continuing his brisk speed, he sped down the road, ramping up to almost eighty miles an hour to maintain control, suddenly the police cars burst from around a few corners, Ivan whooped as the wind blew past his face..

The stubborn woman never gave herself much time to recover from injuries, and because of that her body still ached from the encounter with that stupid Mister Reaper fellow. That wouldn’t hinder her abilities though, and to prove it to herself she had three tasks planned today. One had already been dealt with, and she was on the way to her next; the final she’d deal with later tonight. She ran at full speed along the high rooftops of LA, easily leaping the gaps between buildings and ignoring any fatigue she felt.

Kassandra as always was completely prepared for her mission, but it seemed someone reckless had gotten there first. She came to a skidding halt as sirens screeched into her ears and bright red and blue lights stung at her eyes. A brief moment later, she witnessed an average looking man bursting across the streets below at speeds that easily surpassed her own. There was no way she could catch him if she let him get ahead. Kassandra had little time to react, she thought to reach for her gun, but quickly denied the idea. Instead, she leaped off the rooftop, using her grappling device to slow her fall and firing it at the rooftop she leaped from. It latched onto it with no problem and allowed for a smooth landing. The skilled mercenary easily landed into a roll, now down on one knee as the man blasted towards her.

She swiftly rose up and assumed her military stance, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. If it weren’t for her quick thinking and combat experience, she’d never be able to time an attack against a guy with that speed. Kassandra threw her left leg out low as her ran towards her, intending to trip him up and hit his shins hard. Though it won’t feel good to stop him, at his speed she was confident that he couldn’t get away. If this didn’t work, catching him on foot wasn’t possible, and no car she could get around here would be capable either. Basically, this was all or nothing; she liked that.

Mister Reaper was on top of the roof of a very large museum, not his favorite place to be when there were people that he could be killing, the villain was working to get a little more of a villainous status though. All villains robbed museums too, everyone knew that. Earlier that day the villain had simply been walking around in the market place, in full costume, not many people even looked at him, watching all the people he could follow home and kill. He had been staying at the last house a little too long, four days now. Then out of nowhere someone handed him a flier advertising some museum with a huge diamond before the man continued on his way talking to some other dorks about superheroes or something like that.

That was how the nefarious villain had managed to find himself inside an air duct, on top of a museum, dressed in almost all black along with his favorite mask, and about to steal, as well as possible kill a few guards, a huge gem in one hundred degree weather. He shimmed through the vents, only getting lost a few times, until he came across a door with two guards but one was going to the bathroom. Mister Reaper decided to wait for a little bit so they could both fight him, giving them a slight edge, but the other one never came out in fact they both went in. “Gay,” the man in the vents said a little too loudly. Then a smaller guy came out and walked into the room that had been guarded, stealing the gem first, but Mister Reaper already had a plan brewing to stop him in his tracks.

Getting out of the vents had taken longer than he had anticipated, since they had been too small to allow him to turn around forcing him to shimmy backwards all the way, fortunately he did not get lost on the way out. Emerging from the vent, Mister Reaper began to ran across the buildings as fast as he could, he was not sure if it was the right way or not and only had his gut to go on but then he saw something he had not expected to see. A woman, but not just any woman, it was the same woman he had fought not too long ago. “This must be my lucky day,” the man said in a low growl as he continued to run now following the woman. She had to know something he did not. The woman ran to the edge of a building and readied herself, he was not sure what she was going to try to do, although it looked like she was going to jump, but the man simply ran past her. He had his own entrance planned. He was not sure of the woman had noticed him because he was not paying much attention to her anymore, all of his mind prepared for what he would soon do.

As he reached the edge of what appeared to be a donut shop the man heard the familiar sound of sirens coming down the street to his left, everything was working out exactly as he had planned. Jumping out towards the street, not exactly keeping time with anything in particular, and he began to plummet to the street below. As he fell, the building he was jumping from not being that tall, he readied himself for impact and directed himself as best he could, it was mostly up to chance though. Crashing down on top of a now broken in police car hood, Mister Reaper slowly stood, doing his best to seem as evil and destructive as possible, and pointed to where the man before him was as he said, “I am the man that will bring upon you death. I am Mister Reaper.” He used his gruff voice the entire time just to add to the effect.

A police officer crawled from the mangled heap of the car that lay under the villains feet and pulled his gun, aiming for the villain that was on top of his car, and yelled, “On the ground.”

"You messed up my entrance," Mister Reaper then turned to the man quickly and kicked him in the bridge of the nose, breaking it in and possibly killing him, and then with the same foot and lightning reflexes he kicked his hand holding the gun, popping in in the air and quickly caught it. Waving the gun in the air and shooting randomly, making it very obvious that Mister Reaper was both horrible with guns and on the crazy side of sanity, he shot most of the bullets in the air but one and only one went in the sort of direction that the guy was in and might hit him, if the villain got crazy lucky.

Ivan was flying across the pavement when the woman dropped down from seemingly out of nowhere, Ivan only had time to blink in puzzled confusion before he was sent flying end over end, he rolled to break his fall, skidding to a halt as the Jade Dragon tinked its way across the pavement, coming to a grinding halt a few feet from Ivan Thats not gonna buff out he thought to himself with a sigh

The woman held a serious expression and Ivan surveyed her for a moment, the cop cars were a few feet away from them before another man leaped down onto the lead car, then began firing into the air, Ivan could do nothing but stare "What the fuck?" he said slowly to himself, apparently there were quite a few people after this dragon, quite a few dangerous people.

Chloe +made her way up the stairwell of the building. She opened the door onto the roof. She had brought a chair up with her and barricaded the door. She pulled out her rifle and took aim on her target, Mr. Reaper. After the failed attempt on him before, she wanted her prize. She ducked as he shot into the air. She looked over to where he was looking. She saw a man who had tripped and dropped the priceless Jade Dragon. Bonus, she thought to herself as she put away her rifle. She pulled out her Grapple gun and brought herself down behind the police car where Reaper was standing.

The gamble worked out for her, like it usually did; luck was just always on her side. The man flipped over her leg, but surprisingly he was capable of recovering smoothly. Though he dropped the dragon, he managed to break his fall with a roll. She expected him to slam into the pavement face first, but this guy wasn’t just fast, he knew what he was doing. Despite his skill, he had no idea how to handle the situation, while Kassandra could easily take control of it. She immediately withdrew one of her J-941’s from its holster and pointed it down at the confused man. Before she could get a word out, an all too familiar face showed up to ruin everything. She hadn’t noticed him moving behind her earlier, she was far too focused on getting that dragon, but now there was no ignoring it. Mister Reaper being here just complicated everything, what a shitty coincidence, screw luck…

Kassandra never took her eyes off the man she held at gunpoint, but did glance back with her peripherals at Reaper. He stood on a totaled police car, and fired off every bullet in the clip of his stolen gun, but only one even went near them. Kassandra briefly shivered as the bullet zipped by her, but quickly shook it off and focused on the kid in front of her. That idiot did do her one favor though, slowing down the cops gave her more than enough time to get what she wanted and split. “Move a muscle and I’ll unload this entire clip into your chest. Unlike that idiot, I can actually aim.” She said with a nod back to psychotic villain. Kassandra had little time to waste, not waiting for a response as she walked past him to recover the Jade Dragon.

After placing the valuable Jade in the pouch that hung at the back of her belt, the same one she always used to carry her gems, Kassandra turned her head to glare at the man she had threatened. “Good boy.” She said as she put the gun away with one hand while the other withdrew her grappling gun. With a simple press of a button, Kassandra quickly ascended towards the rooftops, leaving the chaotic scene behind her. Though she was confident it would follow her, at the very least the police could be kept out of the way.

She knew both of those men were faster than her and wasted no time, as soon as she reached the rooftop she began sprinting towards the next. It was no problem to leap the gaps, but it wouldn’t be enough to escape; she needed to lose them and quick. Dropping into the alleys might work, but if she gets caught, she's cornered. Kassandra quickly plotted up a scheme, now it was just a matter of waiting to put it into action.

Ivan allowed the woman to hold him up with a large grin plastered on his face Well this is quite a turn of events he mused, the Jade Dragon was already out of his head, he hadn't had much interest in it to begin with, but this turn of events he couldn't resist, he gave a small running start and then a little hop, bringing his knees all the way up to his chest, they shot back down with tremendous force, cracking the pavement slightly as he shot up and into the air, his ascent slowed as he approached the top of the building, he grabbed the lip and spun over the top, quickly chasing the woman down "You know I love it when they play hard to get!" he shouted at her, loud enough for the man and woman who had dropped down behind him and were still on the ground could hear, though they probably wouldn't be able to make out the words, he wanted this to be as exciting as possible...

The gun was empty, pulling the trigger over and over made sure of that, and it was thoroughly useless now so he threw it at the ground in anger. Mister Reaper returned his attention to the people that had landed on the ground around him, the man from the museum and the woman from some time ago. They said a few things, Mister Reaper had sort of been amazed he used a gun so he quit listening, then the girl grabbed the diamond, or whatever it was, and used her zip line thing to get back up to the roof with the other guy right behind her, she already had that guy whipped. It would take to long for him to get all the way back up there but he had to.

Mister Reaper jumped from the top of the cop car and ran towards the building everyone else was jumping on and leapt up to about halfway up it. Climbing as fast as he could, the villain looked over the ledge of the roof to make sure someone was not just going to shoot him in the head, it did not look like anyone was so he got on top of the building and began to chase after the others.

Chloe pulled her gun out on Reaper before he ran off. Ugh! She pulled out her Grappling gun and launched herself onto the building opposite the girl with the statue. She switched her tactic to go after the Statue and her target would come after her, two for the price of one. She stood on the building and pulled out her sticky bomb gun. Launching 2 at the side of the building and 2 shrapnel ones near her with a timer set to 30 seconds.

Mars laid out on his stomach in a prone on a building across from the museum that was his target. Apparently he was after some kind of Jade Statue. It was supposed to be quite coveted and he was given the task of breaking into the exhibit and stealing it. It seemed easy enough, especially for someone with is skill set. He could probably be in and out before anyone even noticed that he was there at all. The sun hung high overhead, Mars waited staking out the site making mental notes of the surrounding area, the layout of the target building. Placing his binoculars up to his eyes he watched the flow of traffic in and around the building. He would wait until night fall to put his plan into motion.

Continuing his stakeout, he was shocked to hear the museum’s alarm system going off. Over the top of the alarm he could hear the roar of a wave of police sirens drawing near. “The fuck?” he said concerned, looking for whoever caused this, and put his contract in danger. The then spotted a man crashing from a window to the ground below; he was clutching a green statue in his hand. “The fuck?!” he growled jumping to his feet as he saw the man break into a sprint down the road.

No one told him there was going to be competition for this job. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated. Taking off, Mars began to sprint at full speed across the rooftops after the man. As he did he realized that he would not be able to keep up. This man was way too fast to be just a normal thief. His only hope was if something slowed the man up enough for him to catch up. Thankfully fate was on his side this day, he saw a woman stick out her leg and trip up the man. The thief left his feet and rolled down the street dropping the statue as he did.

Mars managed to catch up coming to a halt he watched from above as the two warriors faced off. The woman raised one of the guns she had on her and pointed it at the thief. Mars decided to stay on the roof and wait out the standoff. Best case scenario, they would take each other and the police out leaving Mars to swoop in and claim the prize. Finding a shadowy corner of the roof the watch from, Mars bided his time. Then a third threat appeared. As the police cars pulled up another man crashed onto the roof of the first squad car on the scene. Assaulting the police officer the climbed out of the totaled car and taking his weapon he fired crazily and Mars smirked. The idiocy almost made him breakout laughing. The woman who as far as Mars could tell had taken charge of the situation moved quickly to the statue and scooped it up placing it in a pouch on her belt all while holding the thief at gun point. She then used some kind of grappling device to ascend the building nearest to her, which was across the street from Mars. He took this as his queue sprinting parallel to her across the roof tops. He had a slight lead as he vaulted from one roof to the next without breaking stride, waiting for the right moment to make his move and get across the street.

“Now.” He said to him himself augmenting his path slightly at an angle and placing his foot on the edge of the building that faced the street. Pushing himself off the soared forward landing with one foot on a street lamp. Keeping his forward momentum he jumped forward a second time landing on the head of the streetlamp on the other side of the street with his other foot. With one last jump he was on the same roof as the woman. Mars rolled as he landed on the roof and was to his feet in an instant standing confidently facing he with his right hand resting securely on one of his M9 pistols which was resting at his hip. “So any chance I can get you to just give me that statue.” He asked calmly getting straight to the point. A sly smile creeping across his face, as his right index finger looped gently around the trigger of his pistol.

Great, now she had a third man following her. She wasn’t stupid, with her peripheral vision she easily spotted the man sprinting on the opposite roof. He had a lead on her, but it seemed he couldn’t move any faster than her. As long as he was on the opposite rooftop, she was still in control, but now her scheme with the other two had become too complicated. Just who the hell was this new guy anyway? Sadly, the only familiar face was that stupid psychopath, and hopefully he’d play his role. Sicking these dogs against each other shouldn’t be too difficult; the dimwit should be easy to turn against at least one of them.

Kassandra’s light brown eyes widened in awe at the man’s extraordinary actions, she nearly tripped over herself, but instead only stumbled briefly; she hated seeing someone 'almost' better than her. The stubborn woman would never allow herself to make a stupid mistake like that, she easily regrouped and continued on her sprint. Though her persistence didn’t matter, the man swiftly made his leap across both street lamps, and thanks to his lead he was able to roll into a smooth landing right in front of her. Kassandra came to a skidding halt and quickly eyed up the fighter before her, he was certainly prepared and very physically fit; this was going to be interesting. The skilled fighter held a confident stance, his hand resting on his gun as the two stared each other down. Great, there goes control of the situation, and getting it back was going to be a challenge.

Drawing her gun was suicide, there was no way she could reach for it without this guy drawing and opening fire. She could not assume he wouldn’t take her life without hesitation, and had to play this carefully. The last thing she wanted to do was play her trump card, but if things turned for the worst, she would have no choice. She chose sweet threatening words instead of an attack, perhaps even more deadly in the long run. Kassandra took one small step forward before speaking up. “Maybe if you make it worth my while, ‘tough guy’.” She took another slightly larger step forward, watching carefully what the fighter before her was up to. Kassandra then refused to move another inch, she didn’t want to risk being shot, and had no idea what to expect from him. Hopefully she could coax him into believing she wasn’t his enemy, trick him long enough to take a few little steps..

Ivan heard the man clambering up the building and caught a brief of him coming up over the lip before he turned his attention back to Kassandra, He took a few gliding steps which took him across the roof and leaped over the edge, falling and rolling to the other roof below, he sprang up and quickly gained on the woman, leaping to the next building and touching down almost as soon as the man had finished his words, he surveyed the scene for a second before deftly picking the dragon statue from her pouch while her hands were proverbially tied, he lifted it up from behind her shoulder ”This seems pretty valuable eh? Hot potato anyone?” He chuckled at his own joke, knowing soon the man and woman chasing him would be here shortly, and with the addition of the man and woman before him he knew the statue would be switching hands frequently, it highly, highly amused him

As Mister Reaper gained on the other thieves, including one that had not been on the scene earlier, he noticed the Mexican standoff of sorts that was going on. The new guy had a gun trained on the girl he had fought only a few days earlier and the villain knew that she could probably take the guy with the gun. Although Mister Reaper did not care whether the woman lived or died he did however want to kill her himself, or at least that was what he kept telling himself over and over.

They were all paying attention to something else so he decided to take advantage of the whole thing and give the woman the distraction she would need to get the jump on the guy with the gun on her. Running as fast and as hard as he could, Mister Reaper made his way for the rest of the group before he launched himself at the man that was now holding the ruby, or whatever the thing was called. The villain in mid kick flew through the air fast and with deadly accuracy aiming right for the center of his back. The attack might kill the man but it was always better to be safe than sorry with the number of supers running around these days.

“Hey,” Mister Reaper yelled out in midflight, “I’m using my flying jump kick attack.” The villain was loud and obvious which would hopefully distract the man with his gun drawn while not giving the other man enough time to dodge. Mister Reaper was hoping to at least graze the man, but that guy was fast so if he moved it would not be a surprise, and he was ready for a rough landing.

Chloe grumbled as they moved across buildings, the shrapnel had exploded out from the bombs but where they were wouldn't touch them. She just had to get closer but at the same time that would lower her chances of survival. She needed to get this long range, where she was better at. She couldn't take on the 4 of them if she got the statue. She bounded across the buildings until she was on the one parallel to them. Removing her rifle from her back She fired rounds off at them. She knew they wouldn't hit, they didn't have too though. She threw a smoke grenade across the buildings to them. She hoped this would provide her the distraction she required. Making her way to the edge she leaped off and glided across into the smoke, pistols in hand. Her Gauntlet blades sprung out as she landed. She landed on in the smoke, her sonar on her HUD showed her where everyone was.She stepped out of the smoke and fired a couple rounds into the smoke. "So how many of you have a price on your head?" She asked before firing more rounds in. Her next idea was to pull out her Tranquilizer gun and try to use her shot with that on one of them. The gun might be more effective though. "Now, hand it over and no one gets hurt." She fired her last round out before reloading, in preparation.

Mars didn’t even have a chance to responded to the woman’s response before his attention was drawn somewhere else. The original thief appeared behind the woman, deftly slipping his hand into the pouch that she had placed the statue in and snatching it for himself. Mars drew his gun immediately aiming it over the top of the woman’s shoulder, at the thief behind her. He was prepared to fire if the man made as much as a twitch.

That’s when all hell broke loose. The trigger happy fool from before had appeared on the rooftop shortly after the thief. The fool announced he actions as he made them leaping toward the group with his leg extended outward. It took only a split second for Mars to see that the man hurtling toward him at a great speed was not only a persistent nuisance but also a threat. Mars decided that he might as well shoot him in the face now while he had the shot instead of dealing with the fool later. Snapping his aim from the thief to take aim at the head of the airborne man Mars started to pull the trigger, when he heard shots being fired and bullets fly by him. This was followed by a smoke grenade that bounced up against his leg.

The thick dark smoke flooded into the air from the capsule that was laying at his feet. The source of this bothersome turn of events made herself clear. She was yelling something about bounties and what not, Mars really was not paying attention to her words, only to where they were coming from. Even through the smoke, he could make out her general direction and she made it even easier for him once she started firing into the smoke cloud. One of the rounds she had let off struck him in the shoulder. The bullet flattened against his near impenetrable ski n and fell harmlessly to the ground.

Mars jumped back away from the woman and the thief, realizing that he had no idea what they were really capable of he wanted to avoid being hit with something that could actually hurt him while he was blind. Mars crouched down in a defensive stance as he fluttered his eye lashes. As he did this his vision quickly shifted into its thermal state, soon the dark smoke filled environment was replaced by multicolored heat signatures. The warmly colored humanoid shapes that belonged to his competitors were now able to be seen clearly through the smoke.

Taking swift action his left hand shot toward his second pistol that was strapped under his right arm. Drawing the weapon he took aim at the brightly colored shape that belonged to the woman who had opened fire on them. He squeezed the trigger of his pistol four times letting his return fire fly at her center mass. The familiar sound, smell even taste that came with firing his weapon came rushing back to him. Mars allowed his combat instincts to have control over his actions for the time being as he flipped his gaze away from the newcomer back to the three people positioned in front of him. He raised his right hand, aiming his pistol at the group as he prepared for the shootout that felt would be inevitable.