zerocharliexray | [oom] a beautiful night in Gotham City

"I do, Rabbit," Dinah says, drawing her feet together and bowing from her hips. She can feel the presence behind her of Connor, Richard, Helena, and all the others joining her so they bow in unison.

"I respectfully request no weapons be used, Rabbit. We request the honor of trial by hand."

She knows Helena will hate it. She knows Creote and Savant will too, but she doesn't care about them. The brothers are too proficient with their blades, too lethal. Hand to hand is where she and Ted both live.

"It is so agreed," Rabbit says, almost indifferently. "Although it might have been kinder to you otherwise. Brothers?"

He says this over his shoulder, and a moment later an alarming array of weapons goes scattering to the ground: throwing stars, blades, cudgels of all sorts.

Helena, the Huntress, looks sulky but sets down a miniature crossbow and a small quiver of bolts; her weapons are quickly joined by Connor's bow and quiver of arrows, Savants cudgels, and a series of small handguns and throwing knives which Creote removes from wherever they'd been hiding about his person.

Sharon gives up nothing; she brought no weapons. Rabbit turns back to Dinah: smiling, smiling, smiling. "Shall we begin, Siu Jerk Jai? Or have you other requests?"

Hey you know what's worth a try?

"We additionally request that four of your number sit this one out to even the sides."

He grins when he denies - she's glad she could amuse him at least.

"All right," Dinah says over her shoulder. "You know the plan. Watch each other. If they have a weakness, it's that they don't really care for each other."

The absolute antithesis for how she fights - she always know who has her back.

"If you put a man down, take the extra time to make sure he doesn't get back up."

The man Dinah called Richard Dragon opens his mouth for the first time since they arrived, but Sharon sort of wishes he hadn't, once he starts talking. "Do not underestimate them," he says, solemnly. "Legend has it their kiai alone can paralyze an opponent. Be ready. Steady your nerves."

Sharon's close enough to see the flash in Helena's eyes as he turns to her. "Huntress, by kiai, I mean -- "

"I know what a kiai is, Dragon," she says, annoyed. "You taught me."

The blood is flowing swiftly through her veins now, anticipation a sharp bite at her nerves. It's been a hell of a long time since she's had a fight like this, and she's going to have to give it all she's got.

In the moment they've got, Dinah can hear the Silk Brothers eying up their little team. Of course they know Richard Dragon. They've even recognised Connor. Let them think the others are of the same skill level. Let them doubt. It's all part of the opening play.

"Guys," Dinah says, sincere despite the martial arts bravado, "I can't express how much I appreciate you being here. We're doing this for the best person I know, so let's do right by her and see what we can do to wipe the smiles off their faces."

She reaches out and takes Helena's hand, and immediately feels the weight of first Ted, then Connor's hands on top of hers.

(She loves them so much)

Sharon sets her hand on the others, light but no less determined.

He's in the shadows somewhere, unseen, but for a second she closes her eyes and makes her own promise to Bucky: we'll get out of this, she promises him, silently. Stay alive.

It's been impossible not to notice that Richard Dragon isn't the only one who seems most concerned about Helena. Once they break apart and resume their positions behind Dinah, Sharon sees the big boxer maneuver himself close to the Huntress, holding something in his closed hand out to her as he speaks, too low for Sharon to hear.

She can't spare the attention. Dinah is turning to face the brothers, and she can see it in the way they shift, how their weight comes to the balls of their feet; sees their smiles glittering in the dark.

Sharon flexes her fingers and settles into a ready stance of her own, her gaze tracking over the brothers until she picks her target; he seems to look back at her from the shadow of his straw hat. When she gives a little nod, he nods back.

"Here we are, again, Rabbit. The waltz of the fist."

Dinah feels like an actor saying lines in a play, but it is a role she has been playing her entire life, and falls into it comfortably.

"Once more with fire."

She punctuates the last word with a direct high kick, right to Rabbit's face, and is almost surprised when it hits - first blood in the first second.

She must have caught him unaware. Maybe she's the first idiot to charge directly in at them like this.

Rabbit stumbles backwards, but the other Silk Brothers leap to the attack, and her allies meet them head on, Sharon included.

The first few seconds of any fight usually set the tone for the rest: who is the more aggressive, who the better striker, has the more precise technique. It's clear after the first flurry of blows with her chosen opponent that the Silk Brothers are good, very good...

But maybe not unbeatable.

She sees a flash of red out of the corner of her eye as she feints and lands a spinning elbow in her opponent's jaw – somewhere, the Huntress has dug up a set of old-school brass knuckles and she's used them to remove most of one Brother's teeth.

Bits and pieces of the fight around her rush into her vision. Creote – that's Система, she recognizes it from Nat, from Bucky. Savant is a flurry of red and white at the edge of her vision. Richard Dragon – he's good. Very good.

But she has to focus on her own fight. Her opponent is one of the younger brothers, she thinks, light on his feet and with a whip-fast strike that she tries to avoid rather than block, seeking to get an angle on him any way she can.

Part of a fight like this, team against team, is the situational awareness of knowing exactly where each of your teammates are and how they're doing. It's not just regular situational awareness: it's important to know if Starro's in danger of taking control of Superman's heat vision, for example.

This is why, even while taking Rabbit on blow for blow, Dinah knows that Dragon has earned his reputation and more, that Connor has improved even more since the last time she saw him, and that Savant has stopped leaving open that one spot she used to almost kill him that one time.

They're doing well in the first minute. Better than she expected. Almost...

Ha, Rabbit, you made a mistake. You had your brothers play down their skill too much. Dinah can see their play already.

It tears at him to leave the others to the fight without helping, but they have their job to do and he has his. Bucky studies the cargo ship from his place in the shadows.

Most boats are easier to board than people think. He climbs up the stack of containers that he's chosen and leaps over the gunwale, landing lightly on the deck.

He can hear frantic chatter coming from the cabin and drifts that way, listening carefully. Good; they're alarmed. That'll make this easier. He's prepared to toss everyone left off the boat if he has to, but it'll be faster if he doesn't.

Bucky appears in the cabin doorway and levels a handgun at the two men inside. "No radio," he interrupts, overriding the captain's order. "Leave now or die."

"Impregnable mountain!" Dinah calls it, loud and confident, and turns her back into the centre of the rumble, catching the others following suit just as laid out, so they're standing back to back in a tight circle, with the Brothers (there are eleven of them still standing, Rooster fell to Richard Dragon a second ago) standing around them, ready to close in.

Dinah waits until they think they have it, and then:

"Now!"

It's not a move from any discipline, but it's inspired by Dinah's first love, Judo, in that it relies on balance and leverage to direct the opponent's flow of attack in the direction she chooses.

Just as the Brothers are about to each attack the centre, her circle of fighters explode out simultaneously, breaking the kettle and disrupting the Brothers' attempts to rout them.

And the fact that Tiger falls under Ted's fists in the charge is a bonus.

One brother catches a front kick from Connor, the Green Arrow, and stumbles back; Sharon catches him in the side of the knee with a low kick and follows it with a flying knee to the face as he falls.

She turns to make sure he's down for the count, right before white light explodes in her vision as someone's foot connects with her jaw and sends her head snapping back. Crap.

Her vision's a little blurry, but that amulet is doing its job; she's thinking more clearly than she otherwise might be able and so goes low as the Brother who hit her leaps for another strike, rolling out of his way as he lands and his fist hits the pavement. She leaps lightly to her feet and faces him, refusing to be unnerved by his smile.

Somewhere behind her, there's a scuffle and a shout, and then she can hear Creote, the big Russian, screaming for Savant. Whatever just happened there, it's probably not great.

And then there were six. Against nine. And before Dinah has a chance to deal with that fact, Rabbit's fist appears out of apparently nowhere and everything goes black.

(A warm June afternoon, somewhere on the Pacific Northwest. Birds are filling the air with song, punctuated by the sound of children laughing. So many, children, all blonde and boisterous, just like their father.

"Another hot dog, Pretty Bird?")

And then she snaps back to Gotham, not quite on the floor, but not upright either. She spits a tooth out into her palm, realising the only reason she has room to do so is that Rabbit wanted to gloat.

He's not smart, when it comes down to it.

"Did you really think you could stop our delivery with just eight fighters?"

"Ten," Dinah corrects.

High above the chaos, a single star circles over Gotham – the Aerie One, aloft and listening in.

Zinda's been wincing at each blow and grunt, but she stays focused, painting the boat at the pier with a target each time she circles around. But at Canary's words, she grins, vicious and triumphant.

"This is Zero Charlie X-Ray," she says, over the radio. "How's it looking down there, Sarge? Am I clear to take my shot?"

Bucky dumps the captain's unconscious body on the dock on top of those of the other two crew members who'd had a flash of misguided bravery. They'll be bruised as hell come morning, but they're still breathing. The few others remain huddled in a knot behind bodies and behind the container where he'd ordered them to take shelter, watching him warily but without moving - seems like after seeing him take down the first few, no one wants to be next.

Good.

Keeping an eye on them as he steps back to guard, he confirms, "All clear, Zero Charlie X-Ray. Light it up."

"Copy that. Keep your eyes on the sky."

She arcs the Aerie One out of its holding pattern and the jet responds eagerly, like a hawk arrowing toward prey, swooping low enough that she can make out the figures of Dinah and their friends still locked in battle.

Her targeting array beeps and she lets out a whoop as she thumps the trigger. "This one's for you, Skipper!"

The missile streaks away, cutting a blazing path through the night sky before impacting dead on target. For a second, a tiny sun exists on the Gotham pier, a whump of air displacement expanding out as the cargo ship and everything on it ignites and explodes.

Edited 2022-05-14 16:21 (UTC)

Music to Dinah's ears, that explosion.

Rabbit looks up in disbelief as he sees first the plane, (Dinah stands up) then the missile (Dinah makes a fist) and then the cargo he was tasked to protect, go up in flames.

Dinah draws her fist back - Rabbit is still processing what happened.

The fight was a distraction for the bomb. The bomb was now a distraction for...

...Dinah lands a patented Ted Grant haymaker right in the back of Rabbit's throat.

There's no time for celebration. Huntress is down and the Green Arrow is trapped between three of the brothers. That leaves only Ted, Richard Dragon, Canary, and herself still in play – Creote's distraction gave the brothers too many openings, and he's out for the count, along with Savant.

Sharon herself is getting backed towards a shipping container, two of the brothers stalking towards her. She can't let herself get pinned, but she can use their plan to draw them in. She lets them see a little of her exhaustion, then stumbles. They break for her almost, but not quite at the same time, and that gives her a split-second pocket of time to feint toward one, then hit the other with a front kick right to the solar plexus. She follows it up with a roundhouse to the jaw, which sends her spinning to face the other brother, hands up.

She probably won't get out of this one, but at least she can go down fighting.

Rabbit was a fool to give Dinah time to come round. Dinah is not that fool. He doesn't get a second to recover from the punch - side piercing kick to his jaw, open palm strike to the nose. She can feel cartilege aand bone giving way under her power that terrifying reminder that it feels good.

"Call it, Rabbit."

"You do not kill, Siu Jerk Jai."

Funny that he was relying on that bit of her reputation to be true. A hope that her code would translate to weakness in combat.

(When I look at you I don't believe you're capable of killing me.)

"Correction. I haven't killed."

(So we have to teach your eyes to lie)

"Your mission is over. Your cargo is gone. This is your one chance to say you remain undefeated."

Because if his brothers hurt her friends any more, she will make this a defeat.

"Clearly, then, we've fought to a draw," Rabbit says, bloodied and on the ground but somehow smiling. He raises his voice again:

"A draw, Brothers. We have fought to a draw."

And just like that, the brothers she's facing drop their hands and bow to her. Sharon bows back, a little nonplussed, her head ringing from the hits she's taken, and watches as they regroup with their fallen brethren and those still left standing.

Move your ass, Carter, she tells herself, sternly. It works when nothing else does, and she manages to make her way over to where Huntress is pushing herself up.

Sharon holds out a hand to help her. "Looked good out there," she says, honestly. "I like the brass knuckles."

There are sirens, of course. Gotham's emergency services know what's what, and a superhero throwdown at the docks was probably going to result in arrests being needed.

Fortunately, the Commish already knows the details, so the debrief shouldn't take long.

Dinah helps Rabbit up - only partly because she likes the feeling of being the Bigger Person - and they bow to each other as respected, honored opponents.

Then she spies her missing tooth on the floor, and bends down quickly to retrieve it.

"Going to put it under your pillow tonight?"

Sharon's moving a little stiffly – those brothers hit hard – and there's a beautiful bruise forming on her jaw, but she's in one piece as she comes up to Dinah and nods at the tooth. "Nice work, Dinah."

"My ex-fiance gave me this tooth," Dinah says, semi-defensively. "It would be disrepctful to just leave it lying around."

Well, technically he just provided the Lazurus Pit in which she regrew teeth lost in previous battles. And really, it's just not a good idea to leave bits of yourself around. You never know when some supervillain's going to pick it up and clone a new nemesis for you.

It happens.

She smiles though, exhausted and barely standing, and nods. "Thanks. You did well out there, I really appreciate the assist."

Talking of which, she addes into her comm: "You too, Bucky. Come join us. Lady B, we'll see you at JSA HQ."

Edited 2022-05-14 18:25 (UTC)

"Roger," he hears Zinda reply, and above them the Aerie One banks and heads back toward base.

"Copy that," Bucky says, in turn. "One second." He directs a level stare at the crew. "Pick up your trash and come on," he orders. "That way."

Two of them help the captain up, while the other three collect their unconscious shipmates. Together, weaving a little unevenly, they start along the docks to rejoin the others while Bucky brings up the rear on guard.

Sharon looks bewildered for a minute, then visibly decides she's too damn tired to ask. It's been a long time since she's been in a fight like this, and she's beat all to hell. She's going to be sore for days.

It feels kind of good.

"Anytime," she tells Dinah. "I mean, maybe not this again. Let's shake it up a little next time, you know? Don't want to get in a rut."

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