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The evening in New York has brought a cold wintry mix into the air. It's nearly bone-chilling with the wind. But crime has never really cared what the temperature was outside. And as long as crime doesn't care - crime-fighters do not as well. Nightwing had gotten what he believed was a good tip on a shipment from the boat that he had interferred with before a couple of weeks ago, in a former meat-packing factory in Hell's Kitchen.
Landing on the edge of the building, the detective jimmies open one of the large windows at the top of the building so that he can slip within the musty and old building, landing on one of the catwalks so that he can try to get into position to observe the incoming shipment - if there was one.
There's a flash of crimson and gold on rooftops nearby as Nightwing slips in to the warehouse. It flits from one building to another, ending up on the warehouse as well. The figure, decidedly female on closer inspection, peers upside down into the window the former Boy Wonder has entered. "What're you doing?" Flamebird wonders to herself.
The Hand had finished with their work inside. Whatever or whomever they were after was apparently tuned up to the point of the sight of running blood into the sewer grates onto the floor. It sucked, being a clean up crew, while Elektra stood there and wet her hands within the water, her fingers dipping in and out, raised up to her eyes to e-spy the damage done. Which was.. not all that bad.
Once the initial clean-up was completed, Elektra snatches her sais from the ground, sheathing them within her hip-holsters with preparation to vacate the premises. Whistles.. again, much like that heard at the dock called for the small crew of Ninja's to prepare to leave.
Dammit. He was too late. He could see the blood on the floor, the whoosh of water hoses as the underlings clean and wash the mess down into the sewers. Moving along the catwalk, Nightwalk drops down onto an abandoned pallet machine and frowns. "Now, a girl shouldn't leave before introducing herself, especially when she makes all the trouble to introduce herself, and even sends sweet little cards." the former Boy Wonder offers, pulling out his escrima sticks as he calls out to Elektra. "Don't know who you are, but I think it's time to introduce you to the local authorities."
"There's too many of them." Flamebird whispers to herself again. "Even for you." she sighs. So, she slips into the window and onto the catwalk. She's not as camoflaged in her red and yellow like Nightwing, but she can still hide in the shadows in the rafters. Still, she can't interfere yet, Dick has to have his fun.
Fingers work effortlessly against the gloves that were now shucked upon her fingers. Her gaze remains low, as one of the ninjas speak in their quiet and foreign tones, her head nodding quickly and.. surprise surprise? They depart.
It was just Elektra then, even when Nightwing settles in to speak his words of justice and prepare for a battle, she was still.. fixing those gloves. Somewhat.
Does she even offer up words? No. These days, Elektra hardly ever speaks, and since the one has not burned his paper in search of parlay, plans will continue as necessary. Starting with?
Hell's Kitchen.
"Heh." Could be quietly heard from her lips, her hands lowering, arm soon whipping out quickly to toss three throwing daggers into his direction. She didn't even have to look, she knew exactly where he stood judging by the way the acoustics reverberated his voice.
Nightwing has gotten a little slower. Not from age - but he's used to dealing with the nameless faces - those of the underlings. It's been a while since he's had a true challenge. The battle at the ship should have been a warning. But he only barely heeded it. As those thrown daggers come towards him, he's able to avoid the first two, but the third catches him at his side, passing against his hip and giving him a grunt of pain as he hits the ground harder than he wanted.
But he's not stopping, instead, he's moving in against the woman, a wing-ding flung at the hands of the ninja to try to disarm her. "Not the talkative sort, huh." Reminds him of Bruce. Which is fine.
From her perch Bette watches the other ninjas, ready to act if they decide to interfere in the battle between Nightwing and the lady. She winces as something thrown hits Dick and he goes down for a moment. Still, he's back up. Good for now.
Nope.
The ninjas weren't doing much to help. Hell, they were packing up and leaving. They really didn't care that Elektra involved herself in a fight; they had orders. Things to do. They were leaving.
But X marks the spot with a slice to the side, his fall allows her to rush forward, not armed just yet but forcing herself to be to defend against the wingding. The sai catches the weapon in between it's spokes, her hand twirling it in circle and fling right back towards the 'masked' crusader. Hah, was she masked?
Either way, she follows up with high round-house, landing upon her feet with a low sweep to follow after.
With the Hand busy elsewhere, it seems that Nightwing has a date with the head gal in charge. The wing-ding not only being parried but flung back at him is a surprise, but there is a flash for a moment of the man that Bette knows better as he starts to get his head into the game as he realizes he's not dealing with just another hired goon.
When she closes the distance, the roundhouse is blocked with a lifted arm, but the sweep comes to his unwounded side as he's trying to keep Elektra from exploting the earlier injury as her leg knocks the man off his feet, but he twists on the ground to try to tangle her legs to bring her down as well before he's rolling backwards to flip back into a normal combat stance.
Roundhouse block didn't matter; any fighter worth their salt knows to use the momentum for that sweep. And any fighter who knows their worth knows that the sweep could possibly be detrimental to the sweeper. Her legs were tangled, tripping her up enough for her to draw her sais to a defense, points tapping against the ground and used to balance, upper body strength pushing her back up upon her feet with a lunge forward of blunted edges of the hilt towards the mid-section. If she hits.
It was all a flurry of movement; the quick jabs with the blunted edge, the short toss up of the blade to re-catch, the jab with the pointed edge, and twist. Another kick, low, high middle.. down again and defense.
The fighting style seems familiar. It's not one that he's practiced, but he can see the bits and pieces of other arts mixed in. Nightwing would probably actually appreciate it - if it wasn't currently being fully demonstrated on him. The flurry of blows to his mid-section doubles the detective over as he drops back, trying to defend himself against the litany of attacks being pressed upon him.
If there is one silver lining to Elektra's attack is that she puts herself into an identifiable pattern - one that Nightwing is able to notice and take advantage of, though he know it will come at a cost. Elektra's fist collides with his jaw, rocking his head to the side and causing a spurt of blood and ripping part of the domino mask, but it was the opening he needed, as he goes middle against her high, twisting the attack arm around his and bringing his other arm up hard against her forearm in an attempt to disable it, and find a momentary advantage.
He's battered, he's bleeding - and most men would be down at this point. His left arm isn't useless, but he's clearly not bringing it up unless he has to as he looks towards his attadker and lifts his right arm in a 'We done yet?' shrug.
Flamebird stands out of her crouch, the beating Dick is taking is concerning her. She produces a weighted throwing disk and looks for an opening. One will come soon. While she waits, she attaches the end of her grapple to an appropriate anchor point on the catwalk, just in case she needs to drop down and get Nightwing out of this mess in a hurry.
Nightwing made his mark; the slam down of his elbow upon her twisted arm brings her to her knee. Knee. There was a loud snap, and even with the loud snap, the remaining muscles that weren't shorn from their connecting parts were twisting. Yes, her arm was broken, yet still twisted to a point that caused her to cry out. And through that cry, anger was born, anger enough to twirl the sai in offense with a shift of knee position and a -stabbing- lunge right towards his gut.
Style has changed, this was clear bloodlust at the cost of her own broken and probably now mangled arm.
And thus the crux with close quarter combat. While Nightwing's suit was made to take a beating, and even survive a bullet, it wasn't made for the pointed end of the sai that a kneeling Elektra brings about, slamming into the detective's mid-section and doubling him over. If he hadn't have twisted at the last moment, it probably would have been a kill shot — however, it was by pure luck and abit of a skill that Elektra's pointed blade doesn't kill, or mortally wound the man.
He manages to shove himself off, dropping to the ground with a grunt of pain as he swings the escrima stick to try to strike Elektra across the face, but it's clear that he's in a very bad way, and probably not going to be alert for much longer.
Now is the time. Nightwing drops to the ground and that's her opening - Flamebird throws her disc at Elektra, intending just to distract her. That away, Bette takes up the other end of her grapple line and drops towards the floor below, sticking the landing. Another disc is thrown just in case the first didn't deter the ninja lady. She heads towards the conflict, leaving her line hanging down for that quick escape.
Elektra rises from that slightly kneeled pose with a Nightwing upon her sai, aiming to press it further into his body to at least hit a vital point that would take him down. Aware of the positioning, it would be easy. A shift. A blunted drag to make the damage itself more prominent. Not to mention, it would require strength to make this true.
But he pushes himself off, and a swing of a blow there after. Elektra made no moves to dodge this, only took it with a snap of the neck and a look back with a glare. Sure, her face was exposed now, but when would one care? Certainly not now while the bloodlust was at its highest point.
She lashes a foot out to attempt to kick him to the ground, yet the throwing disc that was thrown was deflected with a lift of her sai pointed downward. The sparks signify their connection as she looks up to see another player in the field, each and every detail about her taken in, her feet strafing back in preparation to launch a new attack with just -one- arm to operate with.
And yet, another disc was thrown, the red and black clad woman kips up upon her feet to kick it out of her general path.
As much as Nightwing wanted to continue the fight.. he knows there's a time to bring the better part of valour into it all. Kicked backwards by Elektra, the man gets a good look at the ninja's face before he sees the blur of red and bright yellow. He thought she had retired. Something about her career meaning more than the crimefighting or something.. he doesn't remember what he told her at the moment.
What he does know is that she's jumping into something well out of her league. Even if Elektra's down an arm, he saw that look in her eyes, that bloodlust. Bette would have to kill Elektra to stop her - and he wasn't about to let that happen.
From his utility belt comes a pair of small marble shaped items. Pressing down the trigger, he tosses them out, and they start to bellow out a black and grey acidic smoke that's meant to drive Elektra back. And by Bette the time she needs to get them away.
Flamebird is dressed in a bodysuit of red with gold accents, a belt of golden discs about her waist, Her blonde hair is free from the top of her mask which includes a pair of gold lenses. "Nightwing." she says. "We're leaving." That may be as much to Elektra as to the ailing hero. "C'mon." Still, she takes a fighting stance, seemingly a southpaw style with her right side fore. She doesn't engage, but she thinks she's ready to take a charge.
|ROLL| Elektra +rolls 1d50 for: 1
*TSSS!* Was the sound that was repeatedly heard after Nightwing attempted to.. well.. obscure her vision? There was a slight click of her tongue as she sheaths her sai, her arm remaining limp as she manuvers through the dark cloud of smoke with a wave of her hand that was listless and.. lazy.
Sure, she was bloody, jaw bruised and near swelling, nose slightly crooked and her eye barely able to see out of, but she went through the darkness and came out of the other side, with lips formed to a thin line.
And then she speaks, the five words that pretty much sealed the deal as much as the Black Hand that was sent to him a week before:
"It's not the 25th."
Cue for them to leave, because she was already looking as if she could do this all night.
Nightwing clearly knows what that means. As much as Bette may want to stay to continue the fight, Dick is the one who pushes himself to his feet with his last reserves of strength as he approaches Bette, and his arm finds her waist rather easily. Pulling her tight, he fires a grapple line to pull the pair out of the meatpacking facility and towards the rooftop.
Ignore that additional red on your costume, Flamebird - it's just more of Nightwing's blood from his mid-section as he depsoits her on the roof and is a near heap of hurt. "You have a ride?" he asks her blearily. If not, she knows on his utility belt where he keeps the keys and tracker for his own car.
Flamebird hadn't intended to fight, not with Dick in such bad shape, but she had to pose just so Elektra didn't feel she was an easy target. Luckily, she doesn't even have to run her moth either as the ninja seems ready to avoid an escalation too. Bette had expected to have to pull them both out of the roof, but Nightwing's Bat-gadget does the job for her. Once they're on the roof she can talk. "You almost got yourself killed." she scolds, but gently. "I walked." Bette admits. "So we'll take yours. Where do you want to go?" she asks as she takes his grapple gadget to get them both across to another rooftop and then down nearer his vehicle.
"Heh." Nightwing responds. Though he's unsure about where to go. He's not keen on sharing the new location of his lair just yet, so he hands her the keys. "Your place." he offers to her, before saving what's left of his strength to opening the car door so he can climb into the passenger's side and momentarily rest.
"My place?" Flamebird says, a bit unsure as she helps Dick into his car. "We can go to my little safehouse. It's not much but I can't take a bleeding Spandex-man into my apartment building. Shouldn't we go somewhere you can get some help, though?" She slides into the driver's seat and starts up the engine. "Decide on the way. Don't you have some emergency doctor or something?"
"I can contact her when we get there." Nightwing mutters. "Not that bad." He's lying, she knows it, but that was how he usually handled things like this. His cheek and eye are starting to swell up nicely where Elektra's roundhouse caught him and he grumbles. "..bleeding here. Not time to argue."