The Fourth Freedom(IC)

[Ari]

Stepping back in surprise as the massive man swung out of the decaying shreds of mist and took a swing at him, the King of Suits automatically leaped forward and kicked him in the sternum, sending the Crusader crashing against the wall and sliding down it in an unconscious heap.

Blinking in surprise he called over to Crow "That was unexpected! What do you say the odds are now, my young friend?" he asked with a wry grin, drawing a razor card and flipping it between his fingers as he watched the last Crusader in the fight, confident that soon they would have won the day!

[Quinn]

Now, see, whereas Crow made a rookie mistake? The Crusader made just a plain embarassing mistake.

One of the first rules of Archer's training was to never take your eyes off your opponent until you were damn sure they were down and out. Too many good heroes had been taken out with a sucker-punch from a villain who knew how to properly play dead; heaven knew Crow had used similar tricks early on to gain the advantage in sparring.

Ergo, when the last Crusader turned his head to look at Jack, and say something akin to "you embarass me", he got out roughly akin to "you embara-" before a cold-iron shod boot heel, wreathed in earth energies and at a highly improbable angle, slammed with the proportional force of a freight train straight to his jaw. His last conscious thoughts may have been something akin to '...wasn't that boot over there befoooorruuuugh'.

THUD.

Crow watched the man crumple, insensible - biting back the urge to add a somewhat self-satisfied comment. Instead, he reserved himself to answering the King's question, a slight twist to his mouth that bespoke...perhaps a bit less frigid than before. Victory was a sweet-tasting thing, after all; especially bought with the knowledge of everyone who wasn't going to end up hurt by these racist bastards.

"Better than before."

[Ari]

GM

The last two hulking Crusaders grew still, and a deathly quiet settled over the street as the last wisps of Crow's fog drifted and stretched into nothing. From a distance the few Freedonians who had stayed close enough to watch the fight gave a quiet cheer when they saw the pair triumph, though they still didn't dare approach.

Suddenly, a flare of brilliant light swung out of the sky, arriving just above the two vigilantes and resolving itself into the white-hooded and cross-bearing wonder boy of racist thugs everywhere: the White Knight! Glaring down at the piles of his soldiers scattered around the alleyway, he snarled "Excellent work, I thought it would take at least three of your scum-suckin' super kind to deal with these guys. Let me congratulate you!" he shouted, blue fire suddenly springing to life around his body and his eyes glowing with a brilliant blue light. Gathering some of the cruel flames into his hand, he swung back and threw it straight at the head of the King of Suits, the stabbing light of hellfire sure to render him blind!

[Ari]

Launching himself several yards from the fearsome glow, the King of Suits swung a coiling card at the blazing man above him, breathing a sigh of relief as he caught it lashing around the White Knight's limbs with the tail of his eye as he dashed around the corner, slamming against the wall and calling over to Crow "Crow! Keep at him from above, I will attack from below!"

He was fairly sure that wouldn't be enough to take down their new opponent, but there remained the fact that your enemies not bunching together made them harder to deal with. Now if only he could hold the man still, the boy in the coat could easily whip up something truly powerful. Of course, this would be easier if he could, say, create things out of cosmic force or something, but...

'What a time to wish for superpowers' he thought wearily, peeking out at the White Knight 'Mind the now, Marceau, or we're both dead!'

[Quinn]

Crow did one better on that score, watching the White Knight's arrival with that same cold demeanor. Knight would have only caught the slightest glimpse of the teen in black before he disappeared from view, in the smoke and fury of that barrage descending towards Marceau. The funny thing was, his henchman had just demonstrated why that was a colossally bad idea. The irony did not escape the cowled hero.

As White Knight subsequently learned - much to his chagrin. Crow coalesced into being in midair behind him, just snapping into existence with a pair of those razor-sharp knives in his hands; the pommels laced through with the same wire he'd used to truss up the other henchman. More wires, solid steel ones with tiny runes etched here and there into the fibers, whipped around the Knight's legs, his arms, forehead - and Crow yanked as he slowly fell groundwards. The speed of the assault, combined with the momentum of his fall, pulled the snare taut in the space of a heartbeat...

And then Crow smiled.

And White Knight suddenly knew what it was like to be turned into an electrical conductor for all of five seconds.

[Ari]

GM

With a blue flash that blazed in the chilled air, a crackle of electricity and a smell like burned cloth, White Knight let loose a roar of pain and struggled mightily against the wires! Despite his best efforts though, he was already lost, the line winding around him preventing any movements beyond random, feeble jerks and pained twists.

Smoke curling from him the hooded Knight glared down at Crow. "This won't hold me!" he shouted defiantly, suddenly slamming himself against a sharp corner of the nearby wall, trying to cut through the hard wires of Crow. The metal held true, however, with hardly a scratch.

"Just you wait, I'll get you and that muddy-skinned ****** coward!" He sounded at least fairly sure that was in the cards. The flames running up and down him seemed to agree as well.

[Ari]

The King of Suits stared at White Knight for a long moment, letting the last words sink in. With a neat twist of the wrist, he slid the explosive card he had drawn back into his sleeve, drawing the chemical-powered gauntlets over his hands instead. "You know, I have lived here for years, Mr. White Knight, and nobody has ever called me that. Congratulations." drawing the grapple gun he fired it into the wall next to the supervillain's head, rocketing towards him in a red and black streak through the air that whizzed straight at White Knight's face!

Just before he collided, Marceau swerved, driving the ram into the hellfire-powered Klansman with a tremendous impact! Landing neatly on the brick, he turned and glared back at his enemy. "Want another?"

[Quinn]

If White Knight had a reply - or maybe even a sour look under that white peaked mask - he suddenly found himself without a great deal of time to say it.

It started with a stench, you see - a particularly vile one, redolent of the sort of back alley garbage can stuffed with both the refuse of a nearby apartment building, and perhaps the leavings of the nearby corner diner; greasy takeout burgers, fries, half-messed spaghetti, week-old hot dogs. Then there was a distinct shade of dark, indicating a large object covering one's eyes. And then there was pain - the sensation as if someone had tossed the lid of a garbage can aside, hefted it in strong arms, then upended it and slammed the whole kit and kaboodle down over one's head.

To shorten precisely what Crow did - he took a rather large can and slammed it down over White Knight's head, shoulders, and about half of his torso with the same force one might have applied to a particularly vile snake that had just bitten one's heel.

If Morgan had been in a particularly lurid state of mind, he might have made a comment like "Good riddance to bad rubbish." or a more succint "Lights out.". As-is, however, he rather felt that the Knight's language, and the presence of a pair of hopefully paying-attention minions, deserved a more apropos response. Perhaps with a demonstration as well. To wit - staring both of those Crusader bastards dead in the eyes, and then proceeding to spin on a dime. Bringing his heel, wrapped in the pure energies of an earth rune that essentially shoved an earthquake into his foot, hard enough into the side of the garbage can near White Knight's head to dent the damn thing.

"...no. He doesn't."

THUD.

[Ari]

GM

Without a word, White Knight fell into a whimpering unconsciousness, sprawled in a heap on the alley asphalt in front of the shocked eyes of the two Crusaders still awake and not running. With dual cries of terror, the tattooed men fled from sight, their pounding feet soon fading away and eventually replaced by the noise a speeding car that was abruptly cut off by a wail of sirens.

Suddenly, with a screech of tires on the pavement two STAR vans rolled around the corner, bearing down on the apartment building with all speed! They ground to a halt next to the alley and the unconscious Crusaders, disgorging a team of officers that quickly levered the dumpster off of White Knight, bound him even further with power-dampening manacles, and hauled him back into the van. He was followed soon after by his MAXed-out Crusaders. Even the one who had tried to run hadn't managed to escape. The one on the rooftop was a little harder to get, but was soon detained as well, borne down by two agile and strong officers.

Their captain shook the hands of the King of Suits, warmly congratulating him on his victory "We had no idea something like this was going to happen. If you hadn't stopped it, I don't wanna imagine how it could have turned out. Thanks a bunch citizen!" With a tip of his hat, the squad captain jumped back into the van, and roared off into the night.

It took only a little while for the Freedonians to return, tentative at first but rushing quickly back to their homes and cheering the speedy defeat of White Knight and his Crusaders!

[Ari]

"Oh, don't thank me, captain!" the King of Suits told the STAR officer after descending from his perch "What I did was quite small compared to the brave young man" he looked around, quite surprised "who was here a second ago." shrugging, he pumped the man's hand gladly "On his behalf, I say we were glad to help!" waving to the squad vans until they were out of sight, he called out "Crow! Could you come down? I would like to thank you for making such a defeat of that..." he cast about for a suitable word, face contorting for a moment before it cleared "wretch. If I had been alone this would have gone badly for the forces of justice and right!" he bowed slightly "I look forward to us working again in the future, if my aid is somehow, someday, required."

He waited a little while for an answer, cowled head tilted up while his blue eyes scanned the roofs.

[Quinn]

There was a cracking sound, and a stone landed by King's feet. A round stone - smooth and worn, like it had been sitting under a river for years and years, the passing of time and water working it's own magic upon the hard rock. One might have felt the sudden urge to try skipping it - the stone would have been exceptionally well suited for that kind of thing. At least, if it wasn't for what was engraved on the front.

A small series of runes, engraved or chiseled into the rock. They burned slightly, then petered out; smoke curling up from the rock into what was left of the alley's mist. There was a moment while the echo of the crack went down the buildings, following the sound of sirens roaring off into the distance - and then King heard a voice from above.

"Emergency line. Hold the rock, talk into it. I'll probably hear."

Crow perched on a signpost; expression hidden by the hood. Though if nothing else...the tone definitley sounded slightly more cheerful than before. Slightly. Still flat as a pancake, though.

"...do good work, King. See you again. Sometime."

Poof.

[Ari]

Picking up the stone and squinting it at for a moment, Marceau gave a low whistle and pocketed the thing in his utility belt. "I will have to bring this to René" he said aloud to the air, setting off for where this trouble had all started "He will enjoy knowing such things exist, at least!" recollecting his cards was the work of a few minutes, soon departing the alley-cum-battlefield with a high heart and a full deck.

Getting word to Tenebrous about the victory, and thanking the young woman profusely for her help in making sure nobody was in harm's way, the King of Suits remained on that block for another hour to keep watch, meticulously discouraging particularly desperate thieves from stealing into people's homes as the dust settled. He made a few new enemies that night, though the fact that the superpowered Crusaders weren't around anymore did make the curses snarled at him by figures dashing into the night a little less vile.

At last, things were more or less back to normal. The Fens were never likely to become crime-free without enormous effort, but as Marceau swung back to patrol above the grim and grimy district of Freedom City where he lived, he reflected 'Want is one thing few people here can be free of, but we can give these people freedom from one thing, freedom from fear'