Gotham's Fireworks Extravaganza

[Derange]

(Please see plot for more details. Got questions please shoot me a PM.)

Oh yes, the night would be one to put in the record books; an evening that could pan out to be worst crime spree the city of Gotham had seen, at least this year anyway. He had a lot to top as the city had seen everything under the sun including near annihilation several times. But of course he had no intention of destroying the city or even killing anyone; he just wanted to have some harmless fun. He wanted to make a name for himself, since at the time being he was the only painted face in the city; it was time to dig out a bigger niche for himself.

All the preparations were done or coming to a close end. It was so simple. Derange had made some nice investment and went on a shopping spree. He was planning to have a little party and the whole city was invited. He had spent countless dollars on fireworks over the months and hired helping hands. Finding so many willing henchmen in the city was easy, they didn’t have to get their hands dirty; they simply wired up bundles of fireworks throughout the city a couple days before, making sure they were hidden and secure.

The game was set and it was almost 9 o’clock. The annual parade was coming to an end but there was an unplanned event to follow. On the bottom of most television stations a banner ran across and on the radio stations a recorded voice spoke, it said this:

[glow=Teal,2,300]“Hello and Happy Fourth of July! We hope you have a wonderful Holiday; in declaration of Gotham and the Safer Gotham Act, please enjoy the fireworks show tonight. Oh wait. HAHAHA! That’s right fireworks are banned from the city, well why should that stop the fun?

It’s going to be a hot time in the ol town tonight!

Please stay indoors, you cowardly Gothamites, as I invite the bright and cunning criminal minds of the city to my party and to help themselves to the cities valuables. And if any of you egotistic vigilantes or cops wishes to join the fun, you’re welcome to try but it’s sure to be quite a deranged affair. Enjoy the show! It’s sure to be a blast!”
[/glow]

Of course the advertisement only need to run a few minutes before it was up on the news; now the word was out like a virus. Many criminal in the city were likely to hear it, become curious and inspired to take action down in the streets. Within a half an hour it began. Fireworks began shooting off into the sky all around the city. There were so many, the loud booms began to set off sensitive alarms of buildings that were closed up tight for the holiday night. It was like someone turned off the light in a kitchen and all the cockroaches began to crawl out.

With all the alarms going off it would be hard to figure out what places were really being broken into. With so much chaos and ransacking the cops and heroes would be flabbergasted, sure they took on crooks and villainous masterminds but now they were all attacking at once all over the city. The whole city was being thrown into a mad maze of criminal disorder and over run by crooks and dirty doers of all sorts.

But Derange did plan to play this fare. He had the codes to stop the fireworks and the secret location of the computer that was setting them all off. Once the code was in it would all end. He had a package delivered to GCDP with a scrambled cell phone. That way he could talk to the person in charge. His location would be a secret until he wanted them to know.

[Brandi Cypress]

Brandi was sitting there watching the parade on the TV with her arms behind her head and smiled. She wished that were fireworks allowed to be shot off in sky it would be interesting but of course with city on high alert with criminals that isn't going to happen anytime soon. She then watched as advertisement went across the screen and then stood. She then looked towards her android Kamiko " lets go Kamiko we will call the others if they are needed " Kamiko looked sideways at Brandi and then nodded little bit and climbed up on Brandi's shoulder and held as Brandi spreads her wings out fly out into the brightly the fireworks were as she neared the city she decided to land. She then looked around quickly as the sounds of police cars and alarms filled the air

[Bee Shepherd]

Bee grinned as she stretched out across the sofa. Fireworks weren't allowed in Gotham (she had yet to understand the reasoning behind that), but she had just watched the parade from the balcony of her parent's apartment, and was now planning on watching the televised fireworks from Boston. It had been a quiet day- no need for any hero-work, just a relaxing day with a cookout for family and friends.

Her quiet night in, though, was interrupted by the news cast. With a frown, Bee sat up, listening to the report. Her parents watched as well, similar frowns on their own faces as well. Moments after the report ended, Bee was already suited up and on her way through the city. Her parents had donned their own costumes and had gone off in separate ways- Gotham would need every superhero on hand tonight.

Robin zipped through the city, the sounds of police sirens, alarms, and exploding fireworks echoing in her ears. It was going to be a long night, she realized, skidding to a stop in front of a jewelry store with a broken window.

"Now, now." Robin said, neatly hopping in through the broken window. Two rather large men stood in the store, dumping jewelry from a broken case into a bag. And by rather large, she meant that their arms were roughly the size of her waist. She tutt'ed, shaking her head and wagging her index finger at the two goons. "Isn't it past your bed time? I think you should put the shinnies down, turn around, and go home, please."

The one man responded by pulling a gun on her, firing a several shots.

Robin zipped forward, easily dodging the bullets with her super speed. She snatched the gun out of his hand, and just a second later had taken it apart, leaving the pieces of the gun to clatter to the ground. "I'd even asked politely, too!" Robin huffed from the opposite side of the room. The two men jumped and stared at her- they acted as if they'd never seen someone with superspeed before.

The second man pointed his gun at her and fired off a couple of shots as well, but these were dodged just as easily as the first. The next thing the two men knew, they were tied up back to back, mouths taped shut. "Didn't your mama's teach you to never pick on a little girl?" Robin retorted, taking a second to adjust her grappling hook. The two men started yelling angrily, but due to the tape on their mouths it was muffled. "I take that as a no."

She raised her grappling hook and shot it through the open window. It shot up and wrapped around a telephone pole. The other end of the rope was attached to the two men and pulled them along, eventually leaving them dangling upside down, quite a few feet in the air.

Robin zipped below the two, smiling and waving up at them. "You two just hang tight! The police will be here eventually to pick you up!"

[Barda]

There was a boom of noise and suddenly light, it was like a swirling vortex. From the vortex, which was in fact a Boom Tube emerged Barda Boltagon, adorned in her New Goddess armour as under her guise as the mighty Black Barda. She fixed her fists to her hips in a pose more expected of someone like Superman and watched the scene around her. It was utter anarchy. Gotham was insane tonight! But that's what she was responding.

One sleek finger extended to the Motherbox strapped to her arm and with a press of a button her voice was being projected. "Criminals of Gotham City. Cease this looting immediately. I am Black Barda and this is your only warning." It was at this point someone threw a bottle of beer at her head. There was dozens of them in every direction. Her face twisted into a growl and then she was a blur of motion. The world around her was reduced to slow motion as she moved a heightened speeds, a first lap around the area to disarm the thugs and brutes in the immediate area and then another lap to knock them flat on their asses. That was easy, it was also about a one percent of the danger area. Only ninety nine percent more to go. It was time to alert any heroes in the area that they had reinforcements "Black Barda reporting in, I'm on the scene."

[Anreal McKenzie]

From the same Boom Tube as Black Barda another figure emerged, in Gold and Black wielding a spear stood the sleek figure of an athletic girl.
Short black hair and pointed ears framed a thin face with clearly Atlantean angles, the girl was none other than Princess Anreal, to the common criminal known as Marina.

Marina watched as Barda cleared the area around them and nodded as she checked in.
"Marina here, backing up Black Barda." The girl said on the guard for more criminals.
The scene was chaotic, but it seemed like every time they visited Gotham it was. This was one of the reasons why Anreal hated this place, as long as the bat family had been here you'd think the crime rate would have gone down. But sadly it hadn't.

"You don't think this is how Gotham celebrates this 'Fourth of the July' holiday do you Black Barda?" Anreal asked as they moved to take down more riffraff in the area.

[Killer Croc]

This was an opportunity for the largest most wanted criminal in the city. Killer Croc had already scoped out the places he wanted to hit and he was under the first building. His fist punched off a manhole cover and he ripped apart a hole in the street, enough so he could pull himself out of the sewer. Standing, he swayed his chest around; back and forth cracking his back and then his neck, glazing up at the bright lights in the sky; they were already giving him a headache, the noises too. He then turned and glared blankly at the scene of the bank that was two buildings down. DAMIT! Someone was already there! A truck and several men working the bank heist. Letting out a deep snort, he clenched his fists and sniffed the air, taking in their scent. It was no matter, he just had it handed to him even easier than before, indeed these little meat-sacks had done all the work for him.

Killer Croc simply was going to use his shear dominance and force over throw the little bank robbers and bag him some easy green. He already was snippy because he felt rushed because there were so many places he wanted to hit and he started to think that all of them would be cleared out by the time he arrived, this needed to be quick. The robbers were too involved to even notice him walking up in the gloom behind them. Casey took heavy step after step and stopped looking down at one of them; they had created a line to pass the bags of money to the truck. Casey grabbed the man closest to the truck, covering his mouth and hit him over the head and shoved him in the back of the truck.

Casey reached into the truck grabbing two bags and saw a bag coming down the line. The man before him muttered some excitable words as he handed Croc the bag swiftly, what clever rouse, he placed his hand out taking another and got ready for the next one as he tucked then under his arm.

“That’s the last of it! Lets move. Those blasted heroes will be crawling the place at any moment! Harry start the tru….What the fuuuu..”

Bewildered when he turned the masked crook was confronted but a scaly wall where his coworker had been. Upon higher inspection he was faced with narrowed glowing yellow eyes and a pair of razor sharp teeth gleaning down towards him. The man was suddenly hit by a bag of money as it came to him and he nearly fell over catching it before Casey took hold of him and snarled.

“I’ll be tak’n this off yer hands, little man.”

Clenching the bag and pulling it, his nails going through the crooks shirt. He lifted the robber up with one hand. He shook the man back and forth before his shirt ripped and he flew across the pavement into a store window. He placed the bags he had so far collected in a large sack looped around his chest. An array of gun fire then let out at Killer Croc as the men rallied towards him. Casey growled.

“Don’t ya know not ta bring guns to a Killer Croc fight!”

Casey charged at the men, unaffected by the tiny bullets bouncing off his tough hide. He plowed into them, swiping at their weapons, his razor sharp claws slicing the flesh of their forelimbs, and tossing them like rag dolls across the parking lot.

“I’m tak'n over this job! Hand over yer loot boys or I’ll take it by bloody force!”

But the men ran to the truck, getting inside and that was a mistake. He wasn’t about to let them take off with all that money. Casey charged and grabbed the back of the truck as they tried to peel out and he yanked back; the truck didn’t budge. He had a tight hold of the sides of the truck’s bed and it screamed and burned blacked as he began to pull it along sideways, spinning it around and around in a circling motion, enough to make them all want to hurl. He finally let go and the truck veered off nearly hitting the bank wall. Storming over he lifted the back of it rocking it violently, then he slammed it up and down as the men tumbled around inside. He stopped to grab their attention.

“Caution! Objects in the mirror are larger than they appear!”

Casey noted, staring at the driver through the mirror, growled deeply and he snapped his jaws open and closed which made an intimidating noise.

[Pete Todd]

Pete was just relaxing at home in his boxers when the fireworks started going off. Before springing into action, Pete had a thought. This would probably be a good time to bust out some heavier protection he, erm... borrowed from the GCPD. At the back of Pete's closet were two boxes: one held the Red Hood outfit he usually wore, complete with white leather jacket, grey kevlar undershirt and black cargo pants. From this box Pete grabbed his chrome red utility belt and the chrome red shock gauntlets. The box next to it housed a bit of an upgrade to the Hood's regular outfit.

Gary, Pete's stepdad, was a proud member of the GCPD. Pete liked to take advantage of this. It was cool though because Gary is a bit of an asshole. One day Gary came home with a box of fancy new riot armor. A few days later, that armor mysteriously vanished. Gary eventually got a new set but the old one remained safely hidden away in the back of Pete's closet. He eagerly took the armor out of the box. On the armors chest was a Batman symbol sticker Pete had put on and then crossed out with red spray paint. It served as a sort of emblem for the Red Hood. Pete put on all the armor accordingly except for the helmet, gloves and belt. Pete put on the red shock gauntlets and then wrapped his utility belt around his waist. Before he went to check out the new ensemble in the mirror, he put on a white domino mask.

Feeling pleased with his riot-control outfit, Pete threw a thin white hoodie on over the armor, zipped it up about to his belly button and then donned the red hood. With his outfit complete, he hopped out his window and proceeded to kick the ass of every looter he came across. This had been going on for about twenty minutes when Anreal and Barda showed up. "Nice of you ladies to drop by! Welcome to Gotham! Red Hood, reporting in." Pete said into his com-link just before bashing two criminals heads together.

Pete's hood started beeping. It was an alert going out to all the police officers in the area, Killer Croc had been spotted. Hood gritted his teeth. Pete was eager to go another round with his old foe. "Barda, mind picking me up? I'm going crocodile hunting. You guys wanna come?" Pete spoke into the com-link.

[Black Death]

“Magnífico!” Black Death said, hovering on a buttress high upon the Gotham Cathedral glazing down at the city. It was the fourth of July night and something had gone wrong. Some blue haired criminal had handed the keys of the city over to the criminal underworld and now the streets were ramped with every imaginable crook. Sonic booms, colorful light, sirens and screams filled the air. The city was in a panic attack and was quickly thrown into disorder as people believed they could take whatever they wished.

Now with the Justice League of Avengers, young Titans, Shield and the police and other protectors of the city knee deep Black Death took the advantage of a killing spree. But he wasn’t going after the innocent; he had a mission this night. He would be digging for pay back. He left the heroes be, he left the cops be, and he left the scared citizens be but there was a group he was after. A wound needed to heal, a few back several years ago when his son moved here to live with Terry.

His son was just a ruthless teenager, much like him. He was a young father and didn’t have much to do with his son growing up, he knew less of parenthood in the boys teen years. Even so he began a relationship with him but the child had a problem, he was in a gang. They marked themselves with homemade costumes and black, white, neon green and orange face paint and were know for hate crimes, dangerous delinquent acts, drug trafficking and use and raids, most acted liked crazed animals. A good hearted kid inside, he turned from that path to make a good life, but they didn’t like that. Afraid for his son’s life, Terry trusted the law and they failed him. His son was murdered and now the Black Death was coming to collect the fee.

The gang was large but split among the city; one of their hide outs was not far from the Cathedral in a two story old orphanage that was shut down about ten years ago. They were wrong to think of the place as a sanctuary. Tonight the hideout was busy as a wasp hive. Product was coming in; stolen goods, money, drugs, and anything they could get their hands on. It might be a hot spot for the police and heroes to hit, but after Black Death sweeper the area, they wouldn’t have to worry about that gang ever again.

“Ho Ho! We are rackin this shit up now!” A young painted up man with giant spikes in his hair started laughing, full of jolly he tossed up jewelry with rained down over him and three barely clothes gang whores. Other members were in the main hall, which was currently used as a shipping room and were packing boxes full of stolen goods to be shipped out of the area for safe storage. People were coming in and out; it was like a mad house. There was over a hundred members around the building and more out raiding. Everyone was jittery and high strung, this was the biggest score in years and their profit was raising a hundred fold. But they had no idea what was lurking in the dark corner watching them.

With the clown’s attack and invite, everyone was taking a bite of the rotten apple. It seemed what the entire city needed to fall was an organized coordination. Sending out alarm breaking fireworks and an ‘attack here’ announcement, the city was working together towards its own destruction. It was a feat he had not been able to collaborate for himself. But with the ‘help’ of this clown and others with the same ideas, he might be able to bring the city, the good and the bad to its well deserved grave.

[Derange]

“Look at that view! Nothing more spectacular on a night like tonight.”

The lite neon blue limo drove slowly across an over pass and the clown inside gleened as he watch the fireworks intently over the skyline. The event was in full gear and he switched around the news channels on the build in flat screen looking for the best coverage. He sat back down and looked at his two henchmen. He was too jittery that he couldn’t even sit still. He pulled out something from thing from a box beside him, it was some explosives; firecrackers. Lighting the fuses, he leaned out the window, tossing them into the street.

“Happy 4th of July!”

Laughing cheerfully, the firecrackers landed and popped next to some people and he gave off a smile. There were sirens going off all around them and the streets were full of people either in the act of crimes or trying to get the heck out of the area. Cops and heroes were overloaded, there was so much chaos happening, no one had yet noticed the blue limo. He had left a untraceable phone with the Gotham Police, if they of the heroes wanted to contact him they could, but it seemed he might be running into them soon enough. The limo pulled up not far from a scene.


“Why don’t we see what kind of party guests came to our party?”