RoT: Part 2 (Laszlo - Arabella)

Laszlo had very few rules on how to live day from day, but a certainly prominent one concerned the eating of free meals. Even if the food wasn't all that good, it was certainly rude to leave a table before the plate before you was finished. It was even ruder doing it on a empty stomach, so the Magician plucked up a spoon and fork and easily curled prongs in a creamy cheesy mass of carbonara. In the back of his mind, his father Theodore took a moment to remind him not to suck down the spaghetti but instead carefully spoon it between his lips. The meal was indeed nice, almost a completely authentic Italian dish. If he was a critic, he might have given the restaurant an almost glowing review; the atmosphere didn't feel that friendly. Everyone else seemed to still be holding that cold aloof presence bar the women on either side of the table. Maybe it was the sense that the room was so full of Egos, but The Raven was glad for his cowl so he could spy on faces and continue to carefully eat the meal before him. When the last mouth full had been swallowed, he lifted the napkin from his lap and carefully brushed over his lips. He stood, bowed his head to the last members of the table and followed his "Team mate" out into the afternoon.

He paused to briefly flirt with the maître d'hôtel once more, complimenting her choice of dress. She shooed him away a moment later and he stepped onto the sidewalk behind his "partner." Bright blue eyes glanced down long legs, to the skirt and what appeared to be strips of a corset. The costume she wore, well, it was a lot less concealing then his own. When the sun went down she was certainly going to be cold. Laszlo took a moment to lift himself up on his toes, looking at the route dictated on the map. There were certainly a much easier way to go, running along the rooftops or using his grapple to get to those hard to reach places. But no, of course this would be some kind of obstacle course they had to transverse. He fell back to the flat of his feet and easily brushed past her, but not in attempt to offend. Laszlo turned, pinched the brim of his hood and tilted his head like he was doffing a cap. "Nice to meet you, Miss." He offered her a bright smile below the face concealing mask, his lips the only source of an emotional response. And of course his hands, one of which was currently indicating the road they were about to take.

"Seem's like we have a scenic route and some crime to stop." He took a few steps back, keeping that air of cheerfulness. Because he was actually quite cheery; nothing like an audition to get the blood pumping. All your chances at fame or mediocrity rested on how well you performed before the watching eyes. "I wonder how they'll know what we'll do." He mused idly, glancing up at the restaurant. "And if you lie what would happen." Shrugging he stepped back from Arabella and turned, idly beginning to walk across the road and begin their little trip. He did not turn to glance back, rather expecting her to come along too.

"Oh I don't know. Being watched can certainly have it's fun elements." He shrugged briefly as he considered the street the two were now walking; cars lined either side of the tight road, with tall apartments above shops and other restaurants making up the most of the fronts of the buildings. Here and there the buildings were sometimes different, an electronic store or a webcafe. Laszlo glanced upwards once more, eyes on the sky, looking along the precipices of the building above for any sign of a tail before he glanced back once more. Eyes, hidden by reflective white lenses fell on the map before him when she spoke again, almost using his first name. "Raven is much preferred when wearing the mask and get up, yes." He indicated the ruby jacket and even tugged on his long sleeves to make his square shoulders slip into place. "First rule of building a brand is of course trying to implant into people's minds as clearly as you can."

The blue eyes glance down to the list of "objectives" on the map, making a soft hmming sound as he observed the rules and requirements. His study was paused for a second as he shook his head, waving a thick glove at Arabella. "I insist on calling you by your wonderful name, Arabella." He paused and mused over her accent, his own sounding vaguely continental but mostly English. A childhood and young adulthood touring Europe and even Asia and the States had given him a varied choice of languages to pick and chose from. From what he could tell from the brief words Arabella was from somewhere in Central Europe. The way she dressed hinted mostly at Romania and their little eccentric styles of culture. "I don't think we should cut them up between us though. Almost certainly not the crime syndicate, that could obviously turn quite dangerous." His hands were still very animated, swinging apart and sometimes pointing at the lists.

The last one was the most interesting. "Be Discreet." He repeated with a muse, opening his coat jacket and pulling a small black block under his bicep. He dropped and lifted it up and down in his hand, letting it bounce. "I suggest we take this to the rooftops?" A smile idly curled over his lips, while a finger curled into the trigger hole. The gun folded out into a Desert Eagle shape, a large black claw sliding out from the end of the barrel. He threw the weapon to the other hand and lifted it slightly, gesturing up.

Laszlo had about as much knowledge of the intricacies of New York Crime as he did of Crime in any major city; there was probably some hidden away from sight and whoever was committing it preferred it kept that way. Like a magic trick, he supposed, but often they ended much crueler and with less buck for your bang. The circus had a few runs in with the kind of people who placed very little value on other human beings; thugs mostly who claimed to own land that they settled upon or say they would provide protection from even worse sources. However, Strongmen and Acrobats could surprisingly be quite scary when they put their minds to it, so Laszlo rarely had to worry about those kinds of people.

His thoughts were dragged from that for a moment when Arabella gave him a bright smile and moved her hair back, indicating the grappling gun in her own kind of way. He had assumed that she meant one of the fire escapes were going to be scaled and was glad for the grapple solely for how awkward it might be to climb up beneath her. Instead, under the ruby cowl his face lit up at the sudden revelation of the tattoos spreading out insectoid wings. Or... no, more fairy wings? Laszlo was enraptured with the magic, watching the light play across the surface as they fluttered lightly in the low breeze. The blonde stood back slightly and watched her skirts ripple as she pushed from the pavement and moved toward the roof above. Struck dumb for a minute as the light rippled into rainbows through translucent membranes, he then looked about the empty street and shrugged, laughing gently. This might be more fun than he was pretending it would be. After a brief adjustment of his aim he pulled the trigger, the claw latching deep into the stone work above. His shoulder jerked just a bit, the sound of the spindle spinning hard as he was lifted from the pavement. When he reached the precipice he rolled out of the speed, quickly standing tall. With a few quick movements of his fingers, the block was folded and slipped back into the holster.

"Firstly, it's really cute you think that would actually work." The Raven brushed off his shoulder idly, before moving to the edge of the building and glancing down. "Secondly, I think its amazing that you can do the wing thing." He indicated her shoulder, index finger twirling around and pointing at her shoulders. His head turned a bit and tried to examine her back a little closer, mind ablaze by how they actually worked. Did skin from her back turn into the wings or did the membrane get created by the ink? Was there nanobots in her skin or did it exist in some other kind of way? Pushing it from his mind for a moment he finally brought up the third point. "Lastly, we should head in the direction of the run down tower blocks over there. Should be crime out there we could fight."

The Raven noncommittally shrugged at her as she addressed the state of America as "Fake." Amusement flowed into his mind when he questioned how that could be so, when everything was made in China. His ruby red cowl turned, bright eyes following her leap across the abyss between buildings suddenly. He suspected that there might be some more... manly men who would have preferred to spend the evening with such a fine woman. Raven however, withdrew what appeared to be a long old fashioned one. Ebony in the center and ivory at either end, his finger curled around it and he held it before him as he walked to one of the thick wires connecting building to building. As casual as he was a moment before, he placed the pointed tip of his black shoes upon the wire. Then the other. In his curled finger the wand grew as if by magic. His full hand closed around it when the wand had assumed the shape of a bō long staff. Two feet on either end still had the ivory shine, as the center was still a dark black ebony.

Smiling he did a quick little bow before she disappeared along the roof tops. The staff was turned into a red handkerchief with a quick tug downward, which then itself poofed into smoke with a wave of his hand. He almost kept up with her on foot, but was about as equal at speed when he was able to use the grapple he had built. The quick movements, the hurdles of moving from one roof to another, the climbing of metal rails and the careful grip of fire escape ladders. There were a few close calls, loose finger tips, but Laszlo hadn't fallen from an acrobatic trick in over ten years and he wasn't going to break that streak. His will alone carried him through most of the strain, lifting himself up onto the final rooftop before the two apartment complexes before them. He didn't sound out of breath simply because he wasn't; this might have been an exercise but he'd have to spend another hour or two working before the muscles ached too much. He approached his still team mate and rather then remain standing settled for letting his legs hang over the edge as he searched too. Where as Arabella was wary of falling, it seemed Laszlo was more then content to be mostly reckless.

The blonde's head lifted further and turned to glance up at her, smooth and definitely birdlike. He stayed silent as she explained the group of performers, the tattoos, the magic. A small bemused little smile formed on his face as he discovered that there was indeed very real magic in the world. He supposed he should have always suspected it; there were wizards and self proclaimed witches in the Superhero community. Still it felt all too strange to be informed that magic, real magic, actually existed. The word Fake returned into his mind and he glanced down at the gloves, holographic projectors, fakes. Laszlo would be offended if, in all honesty, he thought that a little white lie here and there couldn't help someone more then hurt them.

A crash brought the costumed adventurer from his thoughts, some thug in the apartments across taking out some aggression on a woman that certainly seemed to be distressed. A sharp slap rang out as well as a cry for forgiveness as she was sent clattering down to the floor. He frowned and lifted his legs up under him, standing quickly as he withdrew the Claw once more. Arabella seemed to have similar ideas. Before she departed though, he quickly cut into to correct her calling it an Eagle thing. "It's a Raven's claw." Before she went on to point out the window ledge and disappeared to the streets below, dropping like a weight before thin wings caught her. The Raven adjusted his cowl, took a moment to shake out his cape and pulled tight his sleeves and gloves.

A moment later and Laszlo's was against the surface of the building, his feet purchased on the cement and his hands on the window ledge. With a twitch of his fingers he was able to slide the window open, pushing up with minimal effort and swinging a leg into the empty room beyond. Through the open doorway he could hear more crying from the woman, curled up on the floor. The thug continued to swear at her, tell her that she was worthless, tell her all kind of things that Laszlo surprisingly found it was easy to ignore. The suffering wasn't, the suffering was awful, but the noise was pushed back into the dark corners of his mind and the adrenaline began to pump. "Please, Dewey, please..." She said softly, sobbing into the underside of the couch. "Think of the baby." The Raven, the persona of the easily grinning but still violent man, took it from there. An empty bottle of bear stood on the dresser by the bedroom door. He picked it from it's place as the man in the other rooms voice began to raise again.

With a sharp pull of his hand, the door swung into the dark bedroom. Like Satan, red and raising from the shadows, The Raven stepped into the room and gave Dewey a clever little smile. The thug, a black haired greasy lowlife with a pudge stomach and jowls jostling with dark bags under his eyes, recoiled on unstable legs. He had been about to kick the woman in her stomach from the looks of it. He also had a gun, which he was trying to pull from the too tight belt around his midriff. Dewey's voice sounded very far away. "What the fuck are yah doing here?!" Irish from the sound it, about thirty years old if he was lucky. The empty glass of beer was tossed hard across the room, breaking the bridge of his nose before shattering into shards. He stumbled back as the gun came free, tossed through the air and hit the wall. The Raven was moving forward before it was able to clatter to the floor, his hand gripping the front of Dewey's vest while a foot stood on the man's other hand, which had been gripping another beer bottle. That too surprisingly shattered, which only made the soft smile on Laszlo's face widen. Shards of glass were very painful between the fingers, he guessed.

"FUUUCK!"

"Well that's no way to greet a guest."

Apparently Arabella was getting as warm a welcome out in the hall as Laszlo was having in the decrepit apartment. Surprisingly there are very few follow ups to crushing a man's hand into shards of glasses; you don't immediately go from that to lecturing a human being about how poorly treating another human being might lead to karmic retribution. Hindu, Jain, Buddhist or Sikh teachings would be lost on a Irish wife beating scumbag. Plus he suspected it wasn't all that "Discreet." But the pressure of his foot on the thugs hand was certainly satisfying when he saw the hand shaped mark on the woman's cheek, who was as terrified of him as she had been of Dewey. There was a shot in the hallway and the sound of a fight intensifying, but The Raven ignored it for the most part. Instead, he easily pivoted on the sharp tip of his shoe, still crushing bleeding fingers. When his legs finally collided with the same sofa Dewey's girlfriend was clinging to, he settled onto a cushioned seat. The foot still grinding in the glass lifted and then pushed down firmly, like he was about to begin playing a piano. A thick fingered hand twisted hard around his ankle, stubby digits squeezing firmly as Dewey yelped like a scabby street dog. To deter him from getting any ideas, Laszlo pulled what appeared to be a police baton from somewhere out of sight in his cape. The baton landed with a sharp rap on the back of Dewey's knuckles, which made him hiss and let go. "Ah, ah. No. You're being punished and that means this is going to be painful."

"Fu-fuck you."

"You're not my type." He placed the tip of the police baton against Dewey's cheek and pushed slightly, looking down at the frightened woman. He offered her a softer smile and her face seemed to soften, but there was still fear there. "What's your name? Jill? That's a nice name. Why don't you sit down on the armchair there?" She glanced at it and then placed her hand on the other seat cushion, standing slowly before she walked over to it. She sat nervously, feet turned inward and arms around her. "Comfortable? That's good." In the corner of the lenses, he could see a reaching hand out towards the pistol on the floor. Laszlo lifted his hand and rapped quickly on Dewey's arm. He jabbed a little at the inside of the elbow and frowned. "Ah, no. Bad. Bad Dewey." Now where to take it from here. Taking it from here was going to be plenty difficult-

"Is this about the sh-shipment?" Jill asked softly, eyes only on Laszlo's face. Dewey hurled an insult in her direction, a sharp "stupid bitch!" The Raven replied with a quick hard strike to his jaw and gave Jill an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.

"Yes. It's about that. Tell me everything about the shipment." The man lurched up slightly and opened his mouth, but Laszlo jammed the tip of the baton between his teeth and shook his head. It was Jill's turned to speak. The story was only interrupted by the sound of a gunshot out in the hall which made her jump. From what Jill was telling him, there was a ship coming into Dock with Manhattan. Inside of it was a crate, full of soft toys that were meant to be going to "one of those massive toy stores." Except each stuffed toy had a block of cocaine. During the night it was stored in the ship yard, they were going to break in, gut the bears and stack the blocks in the van. Laszlo nodded and smiled with each passing sentence, as he kept pushing the baton against Dewey's jaw.

The door opened and Arabella entered. Laszlo was able to turn his head and glanced out at a hall full of busted and bruised bodies. He waved fingers at one of the thugs who was looking in, smiling as he did. "Go." Jill stood and rushed out into the hall, descending the stairs. Laszlo smiled up at Arabella. "I have a way to finish our last assignment. Anything you'd like to say to Dewey before we get out of here?"

Laszlo had trained in throwing knives when he was younger; they were always heavy and sharp. When flung hard they made an extremely satisfying thunk into wood, with the handle tending to vibrate from the impact. He discovered that it doesn't make the same heavy kind of sound when it slammed into a man's ankle. Instead, the blade was covered in blood and embedded quite deeply into flesh. The thugs scream echoed hard up the stairs and down towards the ground floor. Laszlo lifted his foot from the crushed fingers and winced in empathic pain, blue eyes narrowing slightly At Arabella as she approached the crumpled remains of poor Dewey. The irish man seemed more afraid of her then he had just been of The Raven. He recoiled in horror and tried not to scream as the finger was placed against his lips, because screaming would mean the tip would touch tongue and teeth and the inside of his cheek. Arabella drifted away from the slumped, shuddering form and jumped upon the railing of the balcony.

The Raven stood and patted Dewey's head in a vaugely sympathetic fashion, before he stepped over that gut and walked towards the railings. Easily he placed his dress shoe and pushed himself up, other foot landing on the thin strip of metal. "Ready?" Wordlessly he pulled the grappling gun from under his arm and aimed across the street at a flag pole, sticking out horizontally from the stonework. "Of course." He fired the gun and latched there, gave her a big smile and jumped out into the empty abyss. His hand held the gun for dear life as his cape impressively billowed out behind him, his legs straight and swinging out as he was able to swing past an entire building before landing on the fire escape beyond it. The grapple hook slammed back into the barrel and he scaled the stairs, before setting out at a quick run towards the Docks Jill named.

He moved fast as a snake across the rooftops, weaving in and out of Air Conditioning units. His shadow trailed after him, long but quickly moving, his long trousered legs pushing across the tar. Excersise like this was fantastic; movement like this was enthrilling and felt like true freedom. The smell of the cars and streets below wafting up, their muted sounds amplifying when he threw himself across the empty space to keep movement. There was a bit of trouble when they came up to a skyscraper baring the way. In stead of going around or over, however, Laszlo was able to leap and grip the pane of a window ledge. He pulled himself into the office beyond and walked the rest of the way through the building, nodding his head and smiling at a cleaner.

Finally the had reached the warehouses around the docks. Laszlo carefully dropped from a building to a wire below, before he slid down the wire towards the roof of one of the large, low storage buildings. He rolled into place and placed his hands into his pocket, idly walking towards the edge of a bright light up area. There, in the harbour was a large ship. Containers were being lifted and transferred to a storage yard by a large industrial crane.

There were men moving around down there. "Ah. Shit." He mused to himself; someone must have called the boys from the apartment block. Because there was a container placed to the side with armed men stood around it. Not the police either, but general thugs. Unshaven, greasy, holding automatic weapons and standing on either side of an open container. Inside were the gutted remains of stuffed teddy bears which were being slowly loaded intot he back of an open van; pure bricks of hardcore drugs were being stacked like bricks of gold.

"Well there goes the sinking of the ship plan."

His face turned slightly to glance upon the fairy Arabella, who landed soft as a whisper on the roof beside him. He gave her a half hearted smile, but he was feeling a little nervous about this. There were armed man. Three around the crate yes, but he could already pick out more forms coming down from the ship itself that were armed. Not to mention an idling black car by the open gates which just seemed to be begging Irish Mob. He lifted a gloved finger to inform her of both, but instead a blade slammed into the man unloaded the drugs from the shipping container. It dropped down into his fist and he let out a soft, "Huh." He watched her drop into shadow and disappear from view for a few seconds. Laszlo was going to suggest instead of brute strength they should fight this smart, not hard. His eyes moved onto the slumped form that had just supplied the docks with a new fresh layer of paint. The magician mused softly to himself, "Hope he's not dead."

He did not in fact move in to deal with the two thugs; he had something more important to do. Or at least something he considered more important. He instead dropped into the shadows too, but chose a different path around crates. He crawled behind the wood, cape brushing over the stone cement of the dock. When he was close to the large industrial crane, The Raven scaled onto one box and then another. He leapt the short distance between the highest box to the metal poles interlocking the cranes main support beams. When he was about halfway up, hidden by the near dusk, he slipped through the space and reached a hand out to the ladder into the crane's cockpit.

Laszlo popped his head into the cockpit and laughed quietly to himself, the sound of the engine masking it from the pilot. He climbed all the way inside, stooped slightly from the ceiling. In his free hand, he had the gloves create a stubby but thick blackjack. It was a quick sharp smack on the back of the head of the controller to knock him clean out, slumping slightly over the controls. Laszlo puts hands under his armpits and dragged him from the bucket seat, though he found this a little unsavory because this man was far too fat and far too sweaty. "There we go, come on sailor, nap time." He muttered to himself, before unceremoniously dumping the form face down onto the cockpits floor.

The Raven settled behind the control and wrapped his gloved hands around a couple of sticks. He thumbed the ball head on one and gave the dials and levers a critical examination. "This is going to either be very cool or I'm about to get shot at for nothing. Alley Oop." The large square hook, apparently designed to slip easily into holes on a shipping crate and lift, ground to life. The blonde carefully directed it further down the track and swung the pivoted head around, lining the whole thing up to the crate full of drugs. The thugs hadn't seemed to notice yet as Laszlo slipped the geared teeth around the container. With a twist of his hand the claw had sufficiently squeezed the metal box for him to lift it.

There was a moments hesitation before he pivoted the crane around slowly, then faster, faster, into a full 360 degree swing. With the momentum, he slammed the container into the van hard enough to send it spinning off the dock itself and into the water. "Someone is going to be angry at me for that." The Raven laughed to himself, before cursing and ducking behind the control panel. He was right, the ship was filled with Irish mobsters, all who opened fire on his crane with heavy weapons. He crawled from out of the seat and dropped from the hole in the cockpit, like a black and red shade disappearing to the cement below.

He hoped Arabella was having more luck.