Bar Stand-Off -open-

[hydra]

Sitting in a bar may, by appearance, lead someone to believe that Gwen was relaxing. This wasn't true, her eyes were fixed onto a figure sitting at a table with a group of people; they had their heads low and voices were even lower, arms crossed and elbows on the table discussing matters with each other. Watching them without so much as blinking, her lids only half covering her eyes on each 'blink'.

Those men were the remnants of the Maroni crime syndicate, a once powerful affiliate to the King Pin of crime Wilson Fisk. The Maroni Family had come to an abrupt end a few months ago following an internal power struggle after the death of their leader Salvatore Maroni, his two sons split the family in two and the internal war saw many killed. The conflict came to a head when both sons confronted at a club which ended in a shoot-out, both were mortally wounded and died leaving the criminal 'empire' in ruins.

These men were the made men of the family who had come through the crap and came up smelling of roses, the debate had gone on for a while now and Gwen hadn't missed a word they said. They intended to try and ally with the more powerful groups within the city which meant either the King Pin or The Hood. Either way it meant more influence for either party which was never a good thing, especially with The Hood making open threats against the Avengers. That meant that SHIELD more and more were picking up the slack which meant more work for Headhunter. Great.

As the group started to wrap up conclusions Gwen noticed a vote to place one member in charge of their group, the result was the worst one for the safety of innocent people as they elected Micheal Abruzzi, a psychopath at the best of times this man was fresh out of prison for 5 years after beating a guy nearly to death, it was meant to be 10 but good behavior saw his sentence reduced.
That wasn't the worst of it, the worst was that he had been looking to Gwen all night and muttering something. She knew that he had her number as either a cop or an agent of some government group, Abruzzi was a mad man but he wasn't stupid much to the chagrin of all law enforcement in New York.

Suddenly the man stood up, drawing a large revolver from under the table and pointing it towards Gwen she span out of her seat, pulling two pistols and pointing the across the room guns and weapons were drawn all over the bar making an intense stand-off. Not a word was uttered or spoken as mobsters from opposing families aimed to each other.......A game of Hair-line Trigger Statues was in place and the fuse was getting shorter and shorter.

[Zephyr - Adam Westin]

"Now, now, gentlemen" a voice said with a smooth Italian accent, as another man slipped out of his seat at one of the tables. He was one of perhaps four people in the whole establishment who had not drawn weapons, and probably the only one of those who seemed not at all terrified by the occurrence. He was dressed much as the other mobsters, and he straightened his tie a little as he stood, looking at both groups for a moment before he continued.

"Now, what, exactly, is there to be all worked up about? Two families, once one, sitting down to become one again under Michael here...? Such a bad thing? Of course, he did draw first... there a reason for that, Mister Abruzzi?"

Most of the mobsters were baffled. First the random drawing of the would-be Don's weapon on a random patron at the bar, her drawing weapons as well, and now a man noone had ever seen before was speaking as though he had been part of the whole mess all along? Several weapons swung to point at him as well, and Adam's mind worked furiously behind his easy smile, which never wavered. Headhunter had been made... and she didn't know who he was either, because his job had been to work out the other angles of the job and cover her back without her knowledge, which made it easier for them to avoid accidentally looking at one another. As a matter of fact, if he hadn't seen her pistols and how Abruzzi marked her, he wouldn't have known it was her either - and he had no idea if she knew an agent codenamed Zephyr had been assigned to cover her. If she was as smart as she was reputed to be, though, with any luck, she'd make the connection before she took a shot at him in what was about to ensue...

"And just who the FUCK are you?" Abruzzi's second asked, turning to level his Desert Eagle at the slender, blue eyed man. Noone knew him, and he didn't LOOK half as Italian as he sounded, because his talent was for voice mimicry, not disguise, but all he needed was to make them wonder long enough to draw some of their attention... especially seeing as there was a possibility this mob had been getting weapon shipments from Hydra in recent months... which was why cover was being assigned to a superhuman agent at all. He just wished he knew more about just how superhuman she was before this happened... hopefully she was either skilled enough or powerful enough, because the pot was about to boil over, and it was hard not to see it coming. The bodyguard began to tighten his finger on the trigger, and Adam spoke quickly.

He held his hands up, blinking as though he was surprised by the hostility. "Me? I'm Nico Bellaccio..." he said, still in his flawless accent, but there was no recognition - ah well. It had been a gamble. His pleasant expression vanished, and with it the accent. "I'm the 'cop' your boss thought he was staring at. Good. Maybe that would make them doubt Headhunter over there was one at all... a few more guns moved his way, and the man's eyes widened, then hardened as he pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

The gun was more of a hand-cannon than any decent pistol - he'd fired a Deagle before, and the kick was something else, silly weapon in most cases, especially anything close quarters, since the kick would throw your aim off something awful, but it was a big damn bullet, and powerful to boot. A round like that could take a man's head clean off.

If it made it to him.

There was a WHUMP sound as the air in the room suddenly rushed towards the bullet all at once, and the door was thrown open as wind rushed in from the outside to fill what would otherwise have been a near vaccum - as it was, there was a brief but strong wind, enough to make those who were unsteady on their feet away or even fall. The air took on a sort of shimmer as it closed in and compressed to incredible levels, distorting the light passing through it and then becoming opaque as it stopped the bullet in midair, holding it in a barrier of nearly solid air, compressed at thousands of PSI. The orb of compressed air hung in the space between the pistol and Zephyr, and he shrugged a little as mobsters stared, many agape. There was still a wind being drawn in towards it, but a much gentler one, and the orb grew no larger - but it was growing more and more compressed by the second.

"Did I forget to mention bullets are of limited utility against me?" he asked innocently, then grinned as he released the air all at once, and the air snapped out, expanding suddenly back to its standard pressure and creating nearly hurricane-force winds in every direction, sending the criminals flying close to him, and staggering the ones further away - the wind somehow missed Headunter altogether, though, and he tossed her a slight wink before spinning, sweeping his hand across the air and creating another powerful gust that sent the men behind him, who had been trying to recover, flying back into the wall, and slapping their guns away with more focused gusts.

[adele]

Meanwhile, outside the bar, Adele, codename Dryad, leaned casually against the wall in a pair of comfortable jeans and a green T-shirt that said “Be a hero. Save a plant.” She wasn’t all that remarkable, or out of place really. There was a bus stop not half a block from the bar’s front door and the fact that she was wearing a pair of earbuds left her a certain degree of privacy and anonymity even out on the open street.

No one had to know that the iPod the headphones were connected to was currently off.

She didn’t have an absolutely clear picture of what was going on inside, but she had the general gist of it from her telepathic monitoring of her twin brother, Zephyr. Giving a little sigh as her only reaction to the door suddenly slamming open, she reached into the large leather satchel she had slung across her body and pulled out a small, colorful paper packet that proclaimed in cheerful yellow letters “Honeysuckle”.

Tipping it down, she dropped a small stream of seeds out onto the sidewalk. With just a little push from her, they all rolled out in different directions, taking refuge beneath a few certain cars parked at the curb. She’d tagged them earlier when she watched the mobsters go inside.

Suddenly the air grew a little humid and there was a soft kind of rushing sound as honeysuckle vines sprouted from each and every seed, their green arms reaching up and around, and around, and around each car as they got larger and larger. In a matter of thirty seconds or less, all the cars were completely encased in green foliage that sprouted a plethora of yellow, sweet-smelling honeysuckle flowers, the vines continuing to grow and tighten their grip on the luxury sedans.

Dryad smiled a little and took a long, deep breath of the suddenly fragrant air.

That would at least keep them busy for a while if any of them managed to get out of the bar when her brother was done with them.

Very carefully she folded over the top of the seed packet and put it back in her bag, gentle fingers brushing against the small potted vine that sat carefully at the bottom. Gathering a small bit of power in her fingers, she sent it out into the leaves and felt the leaves grow bigger, fuller as the vine in her bag grew at just slightly less than the amazing speed of the honeysuckle. The vine itself wrapped around her fingers for a moment and she smiled a little before she pulled her hand out and left the plant to grow and wind up like a coil of rope inside her bag.

She wanted to be ready incase any of them decided to run.

[hydra]

The itallian sounding slim built man brought a welcome distraction all around. Gwen watched him out of the corner of her eye, she noted that he was confident, too confident and controlled to be one of these mobsters, not even a drop of sweat about his person which ment one of two things; the first was that he was SHIELD which was good news for Gwen. The second was that he was nuts. Lucky for her then that she was leaning towards the SHIELD option for the reason that nut jobs got stopped at the door. She didn't know if the man was equiped for this weapon wise or even if he needed to.

Unfortunately for the confident one he had been called out by the bodygaurd of Abruzzi, someone who was unstable with nerves. As the two spoke she was muttering under her breath all the while 'don't bring the heat to yourself'.

Unfortunately.

He did.

As the trigger went off and the small mobster was thrown back by the recoil Headhunter leaned and jumped sideways into a dive, over the bar and landing on the other side as a gust of wind seemed to tear through the bar and surrounding area. Popping up from behind the bar was people started getting hit by strong winds, generated from Headhunter's new found favorite person in the world. Firing her pistols at two men who burst out from the back room they both fell down, at that moment as she tried to pull the triggers again they both locked as electricity surged up her hand. Growling in annoyence she threw them both aside.

The lights flickered all around as Headhunter's eyes lit up with electrical energy, sparks generating from her fingertips she raised them up to face level and sent out a low level electro-static charge. The effect, other than feeling like pins and needles were all over the body of everyone in the room, it expanded the chemicals within all the guns, exploding the clips and making the bullets stick in their chambers.

Sending a bolt of lightning across the room, knocking Abruzzi off his feet like a sledgehammer. He was to be talked to later, find out about Hydra and their shipping deal with weapons and other things.

As this went down several men ran outside, looking for their cars which had been turned into habitats for newly formed Honeysuckle plants. They began to get angry and began 'attacking' the plants by tearing at their stems and anything else.

Inside chaos still ruled as people started to resort to physical violence. As all fights evetually did in history.

[Zephyr - Adam Westin]

Barfights were not Zephyr's favorite sort of encounter. Closed spaces like this were just not conducive to his particular variety of ass-kickery, and because he didnt know for sure if the bar owner was involved in this little scam, he wasn't exactly confident that it was the right thing to do to unleash any sort of Nature's Fury style winds in the place. He could generate more than enough wind to shatter bones, put people through walls, and bring the whole house down... but he had to worry now about the morality of doing so. Great.

So he kept himself to what were, for him, relatively weak gusts. For the people he was hitting with them, though, and lifting into the air... well they probably thought that designation rather less than apt. Too bad for them.

Luckily enough, Headhunter seemed more than capable of taking care of herself - a fact nicely demonstrated when the static charge rippled through the room, and just about every gun in the place suddenly jammed. One went off, accidentally sparked by the current, but Zephyr was able to catch it with another blast of supercompressed air and redirect it into the floor - just before he smashed a gust that was as tangible as a brick wall into the man and sent him flying out a window.

SHEILD, he decided, would cover a few windows if the barkeep was a decent sort.

"Woah!" he stepped to the side as the boss, propelled by a bolt of pure electricity, was sent flying back through the air, where Zephyr had just been, and he grinned as he watched the man fall, then spun and swept his hand across the room. A focused, thin gust lashed out like a high tension wire, and sent men sprawling to the ground, many stunned by the impact - again, the wind somehow missed Headhunter entirely, directed around her form by his power. With the guns rendered useless, or so he thought, they could put an end to this situation.... until a man behind him rose, holding up an emerald green energy weapon, which glowed as he charged it to fire.

"Take this, you-"

Before he could finish the sentence, Zephyr spun and slashed his arm across again. The air that trailed off his fingertips was so focused it looked more like a silvery blade than a gust of wind, and it sliced clean through the weapon, killing it before it could fire. Zephyr straightened, still holding the shimmering wind-blade, and shook his head. "Naughty."

The man dropped the broken weapon, stammering, and Zephyr held his hand out as he released the pressure, and the ensuing shockwave propelled the would-be savior of the mob back and onto a table, which shattered under his weight. Others were starting to stand, but he held a hand up, and a sudden but tangible heaviness came over the entire room, as well as a sort of shimmer over the windows and the doors. Headhunter would feel it for just a moment before he created a bubble around her as well.

"I just increased the atmospheric pressure in this room by five PSI. That makes the pressure in this room about what a diver experiences around fifteen feet below the surface of the water. Not dangerous in the least, but decidedly heavier, and I know it makes it harder to breathe. If anyone tries to get up and do anything but lie there, and wait for your arrest to be processed by our iminent backup... I'll crank the pressure in this room up to equal two MILES below the surface of the sea. And we'll get to see whose head implodes first. I hope I've made myself perfectly clear."

He looked over to Headhunter then, and smiled easily. "I'm Agent Zephyr - nice to meet you. Sorry this went a little less smooth than I think we had in mind... but arrests we've got. Oh, and my sister's got the ones who tried to run out the door, don't worry. Care to do the honors with the arrests?"

[adele]

Just as she’d expected, a few of the men came running out and, after a moment of surprise, began tearing at her plants. Initially she winced, honeysuckle being one her more favored species of plant, but she coolly gathered power to be used.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. What did the plants ever do to you?” Adele admonished under her breath as she raised her hand, palm out toward the cars. The honeysuckle vines lashed out like whips, wrapping themselves around the closest mens’ wrists and pulling them forward toward the car with steady strength. The men succeeded in ripping away a few times, but more and more vines came out to grab hold of their ankles, legs, arms, any place they could wrap around.

The men who escaped the cars shouted in surprise and fear and took off running, except they ran toward her.

Big mistake.

Dryad’s other hand moved in an elegant motion that ended with her hand slightly cupped, palm skyward, and fingers pointed toward the first of the running men, almost like a ballerina, and the vine in her bag shot out like a striking snake, wrapping around the first man’s ankle and jerking back.

The man cried out as he sprawled forward on the sidewalk, face first, and Adele winced again. That had to hurt. The man behind him tried to skid to a stop, but he didn’t have reflexes that quick and he tripped over his comrade. Dryad moved her hand again and her bag vine slid back, wrapped itself around a telephone pole a few times for leverage, and shot after the two men as they got up.

Once again it caught their ankles and it jerked, but with a much stronger base than a free-swinging bag, the vine had infinitely more strength and it pulled both men toward one of the honeysuckle-clad cars.

Meanwhile, the men unlucky enough to meet the cars first, were plastered against them and covered in nearly as much vine as the cars themselves, the men’s frantic struggles no match for the still-growing honeysuckle.

The two men Adele had caught on the run were quickly joining them. For each vine tendril the men snapped off in their bid for freedom, three more took its place and it really wasn’t much of a fight at that point.

Then the window smashed and a body came flying through it, snapping Dryad’s head over at the sudden crash. In an instant her arm was up and her bag vine shot out to entangle the newest man; wrists and ankles, then it pulled tight to hogtie him.

Adele finally pushed off the wall she was leaning on and she moved closer to peek in through the broken window. The shimmer of Zephyr’s air barrier was subtle, but she was used to looking for it and didn’t break that plane.

[hydra]

Headhunter looked around the room as Zephyr seemed to get the situation very much under control, it was then that Headhunter remembered entering the bar earlier. Out the back of the bar, in the alleyway was a small army of enforcers, hired muscle to protect all of the top shots who were drinking here tonight. Armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry including energy based weapons they could be a problem, something that although Headhunter had factored in for it was better to advise about it.

"Zephyr. I'm familiar with the name but not the face, good to have you with us." For a moment Headhunter looked to the slightly damaged clock hanging above the bar then back to the agent, "I owe both you and your sister, it would have been...difficult controlling happy hour here by myself," walking across the room she felt a thinning of the air and shortness of breath, fortunately for her the electrical energy through her made her more resilient than most. She stopped over Abruzzi who looked up to her with a degree of fear.

"You won't get away with this! I ha-!"

"Have about 20 armed men out the back of this bar with heavy weapons ready to come and shoot me and my friend here, I know." Headhunter interrupted him, and arrogant confident tone in her voice as if she were slightly bored with this information, "I arranged a distraction for your friends, someone I can guarantee has better hardware in his little finger than all of your connections put together."

She spoke of someone Headhunter had 'invited' to act as the heavy support, although typically working alone she did sometimes call on the special services of some people. In this case The Obliterator, a man of remarkable skill and power whom she'd never called on before yet her connection within SHIELD gave her the contacts to call the one man army for help.

Looking to Zephyr she smiled a little, "I believe you might have some questions for Mr Abruzzi here concerning his...standing with Hydra. Better to do it now while it can still be classed as 'combat'." Headhunter walked from Abruzzi and took out a thin cheroot from her pocket, putting it in her mouth taking her lighter she tried to spark up but the flames went out from the pressure that Zephyr was exerting. Grunting a little in annoyance she smirked and looked from Zephyr to Abruzzi and back to the agent, "I'll step outside a moment, talk to Dryad. Give you boys some room to breathe and talk."

Walking out the front of the bar Headhunter was amused by the sight of mobsters beaten down by plants and cars wrapped in honeysuckle, "Huh, guess Mother Earth does get pissed with carbon emissions." Looking across the sidewalk she saw a girl, most probably Dryad since she didn't look freaked out at all, plus her file from the office as well as most agents had been a good read, "Nice work here. I'm Headhunter, your brothers spending some time with Mr Abruzzi."

Meanwhile out the back the enforcers were none the wiser, somehow not hearing the commotion they were talking and smoking amongst themselves, an atmosphere of menacing power about them as weapons lay lazy in their hands.

((Could you both let Obliterator post first please? Sort of have a SHIELD family affair here and let the heavy support ease into it ^_^ Thank you))

[grimmtoof]

Angus smiled as he looked down at the group of thugs from the roof above them. He’d been only to pleased to help Headhunter out with this mission. It had been quite a while since his last operation, and he needed a good fight. Angus checked his equipment one last time, before stepping off the roof and dropping onto the street between the thugs and the bar.

Ordinarily he would had simply gunned all of the enforcers down from where he was, it would only take a few seconds of fire from his GPMG and a couple of grenades to kill them all. But this was not a battlefield and these were not solders, it would not look good on the nightly news to see a pile of bullet riddled corpses. Besides, Angus though, he needed a good work out.

There was a loud crash as Angus landed, the pavement cracking beneath his feet. At first glance he looked a little like Iron Man but a second look revealed him to be a very different individual. Unlike the advanced shape of Tony Stark’s amour, Angus’ form was much simpler and brutal looking. It was comprised of large curved plates of amour like a medieval knights, beneath which was a layer of servo motors and hydraulic rams. His head was dominated by two large telescopic lenses where his eyes should be, and in place of a mouth there was only a speaker grill.

“Gentlemen,” Angus began, speaking in a low voice full of menace as the stunned enforcers stared at him. “By now your bosses will by either dead or under arrest. You are out gunned and out matched, lay down your guns and give yourselves up.” For a few seconds there was complete silence, before as one the enforcers went for their guns and opened fire. A hail of bullets, shotgun blasts and energy beams ripped out of the group towards Angus, but all the gunfire made no impact on him what so ever. He had made his amour a little thicker than normal to withstand the energy weapons but rest of the guns may not have been there at all.

The firing continued for a few more moments before Angus smiled under his amour. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you!” He pulled a flashbang grenade from belt and tossed it into the air where it detonated with a blinding flash of light and a deafening roar. The shooting stopped almost immediately, some of the stunned enforcers dropping their guns and covering their ears. Angus however was completely unaffected, he’d trained with flashbangs so much that by now they had little effect on him. Though the fact that a split second before the blast he’d darkened the lenses on his sights probable helped as well! With a fluid and practiced ease Angus drew his pair of heavy pistols and started to fire. He could have dropped all the stunned enforcers with ease, but instead he simply shot the guns out of the hands of few who hadn’t already dropped them. With his opponents now all disarmed Angus walked calmly towards the group, just as the regained their senses. A few of them tried to run, but most of the enforcers charged at him, only to receive a swift kick or punch as a reward. Within a few seconds all but a handful were lying on the ground, mostly unconscious. The few that had tried to run were brought down swiftly with a couple of well placed shot, nothing permanent but enough to make sure that they weren’t going anywhere.

Once it was all over Angus checked each or the enforcers to make sure they were not going to be able to get away. The few that were still semi-conscious were rewarded with a pistol whip to the back of the head. Satisfied that all the gang were out of it, and having signalled for backup to come and collect them, Angus picked up the largest and meanest looking enforcer, slung him effortlessly on his shoulder and marched into the bar.

“If anyone was expecting their hired goons to come and save them, forget it.” Angus announced to the room, dumping his body onto the floor. He noticed the increased pressure, but it didn’t bother him. With a nod to Zephyr, he wandered over to the bar and started looking to see if they had any decent Scottish whisky.

[Zephyr - Adam Westin]

"Nice workin' with you too" he replied to Headhunter, smiling and sitting against one of the tables, looking around a bit as he backed the pressure off just slightly. He had other plans for the air pressure in this room, as it turned out. When she decided to head out, though, he nodded a bit. "Sure thing. And you're right, I am curious about a few things, actually." he said almost as though he hadn't thought of that before, lifting a hand in a wave as she left before he looked back to the men, chuckling.

"Oh... if she called who I'm thinking she called, I'm sorry we're all going to miss the show... oh well, though. Back to our own personal business." he said, seeming to brighten. "So here's the game we're going to play." He knelt down a bit next to Abruzzi, and there was a sudden gust again as he formed one of the almost opaque spheres of supercompressed air over his shoulder in a silent threat. "I need to know about your dealings with Hydra, and I need a confession from you as to both, as well as your sworn willingness to tell me anything I want to know about it - which you'll be held to in later interrogations, as well as in court." he held a tape recorder up and clicked it on, then set it on the table.

Abruzzi looked at him, incredulous. "And what the hell makes you think I'll give you that?"

Zephyr shrugged, then smiled as he increased the pressure, and the men winced as their wears popped painfully at the sudden change. "Because the pressure in this room is 1.2 standard atmospheres right now. And I'm going to increase the pressure by one PSI for every second you don't tell me what I want to know, and give me what I asked for. That means that, in about ten seconds, the temperature will be at two atmospheres - twice the usual air pressure the human body withstands. Hi, Obliterator" He looked over and waved casually as the armored agent walked in, then turned his eyes back to the mob boss, grinning a bit at the evident worry in his eyes. Time to make it worse.

"Now, this is the good part - I looked this all up on the internet after I accidentally killed someone trying this before." A lie, but a smoothly delivered one, and Abruzzi was in no condition to spot a well told lie. "At two atmospheres, oxygen begins to become toxic. Nitrogen starts to have a narcotic effect - it's called nitrogen narcosis by the way. Not too imaginative. Anyway. This effect gets more and more pronounced as the pressure increases. As we go higher, the pressure collapses capillaries in the bloodstream, and bone and other tissues start to die off. I'm not sure exactly when your skulls will start to implode, but I'm sorry to say you'll all be long dead by that time. Sure you don't want to talk? While I've been talking we've hit about two point two. I imagine you're all starting to feel pretty crappy about -"

The men in the bar were starting to panic, eyes wide, but none of them dared say a word. Abruzzi himself had been looking worse and worse as this went on, and he finally managed to croak a desperate few words. "Alright! Stop... please, god, stop!"

Zephyr stopped increasing the pressure, but he held it. "I believe there was more than a plea involved in my deal."

"I confess! To everything you said! The deal, the mob... god just stop it!"

Zephyr grinned, and stood. "Why thank you. Now just relax - I have to let the pressure back off slower than I brought it up, or those nitrogen bubbles in your bloodstream will expand and start blowing vessels, among other things. I imagine you men are all pretty lucky - when divers do this sort of thing they have to use special helium-oxygen mixes of air. And here you've done it with nothing of the sort." He shook his head, as though impressed, and went on for a time, questioning Abruzzi as the pressure backed off, and by the time it was finished, the man was half-conscious - they all were. Without the special air mix, what he'd put them through was something that would be almost impossible to stay conscious through. Which was fine with him... they'd be sleeping like babies when the wagon got there to cart them off.

He walked over to the bar and leaned against it with Obliterator, yawning. "You know, the manual for interrogation says something about applying pressure. I wonder if anyone else has ever done it quite so literally." He grinned a bit, sitting and offering his hand. "I'm Zephyr."

[adele]

Everything seemed under control to her own eyes though she’d never doubted it from Adam’s. Her brother would ask his questions and get his answers, then they’d pack up all the bad guys, cart them down to County, and maybe have time to go out for a nice dinner.

Adele looked over as Headhunter came out and she smiled at the woman at her comment just before she gained notice.

“Flower power at its finest,” Adele said, soft spoken as always but grinning a little as her bag vine split into two main shoots; one that was tied around the man who’d flown through the window, and the second free of anything at the moment. Then it snapped off that first half and slowly unwrapped from the telephone pole to coil back up inside Dryad’s bag.

The honeysuckle continued to grow a bit, getting thicker and somewhat tighter around its cocooned cargo all the while, but it was calmer and seemed more intent on producing flowers than vines at the moment. Stepping up to one of the cars, Adele held out her hand to a cluster of blossoms and two fell off its vine into her palm. One she slipped behind her ear before moving to stand next to Headhunter and offering the woman the second.

“Thanks and hello Headhunter. Since you know I’m the sister half, you probably already know I’m Dryad but huzzah for formal introductions,” she added with a grin and an open hand offered for a shake. “Zephyr won’t be long. He’s good at spending time with people.”

[hydra]

"Hmmmmm thanks for this by the way." Headhunter said in an interesting tone, taking the offering from Dryad. With powers like that she could definately come in handy, especially down in the jungle regions of the world, Headhunter herself knew of more than enough people who loved to spend time running from SHIELD in the Amazon and jungles around Boliva. Even if she never did anything this this blossom she'd put it in quarters later, for now though she placed it in a pouch around her waist for safe keeping.

"I gathered he'd be good at asking questions when he brought and entire room of gangsters to the ground just by raising his voice. Its a rare skill he's got," putting a charoot into her mouth and lighting it from her lighter Headhunter blew the smoke up and away from Dryad out of consideration before letting the hand it was in hang lazily by her side as she looked at the plant manipulator's work, "You aren't exactly a common entity either Dryad. By the gun fire in the distance my friend Obliterator has arrived at the party, I think its about time that we let the clean-up crew come and mop up right?"

With her free hand Headhunter reached into her pocket and took out a small mobile phone looking device, opening it to reveal a blue button only though she reached it out to Dryad, "Maybe you should give them a call instead of me. Myself and the top brass at SHIELD don't get along well, you'd be doing me another favour I'd be sure to pay back."

[grimmtoof]

Angus paused in his searching to watch Zephyr’s interrogation, nodding in approval at his methods. Of course he was completely immune to the changes in pressure , it would have taken a lot more than that to pierce his armoured skin.

He turned back to his work when Abruzzi finally cracked, spotting a particularly fine bottle of malt hidden under the counter. He fished it out and held it up to get a better look at it just as Zephyr walked over to him.

“Ah yes Zephyr,” Angus replied, shaking his hand. “I’ve read quite a lot about you. I good to finally see you in action.” Glancing at the assembled gangsters, he continued. “Shame you had to put all of them to sleep. I had a few questions to ask them as well.”

[Zephyr - Adam Westin]

Adam shook the man's armored hand with a smile, and sat down next to him, looking out over the liquor for a moment, but deciding against taking any for the moment. "Well thanks - I'd say the same about you, but I'm sorry to say I didn't get to see yours - maybe another time? And sorry - I didn't do it on purpose, the messed up air pressure tends to induce temporary catatonia. And I couldn't hold them at that elevated level for long - like I said, oxygen really does become toxic at that pressure, I could have killed them all. You'll have plenty of time to question them when they're in holding, right?" he asked, slipping off the stool.

"I'm gonna go see what my sister is up to" he said, chuckling a bit - he knew perfectly well, in truth. He walked out of the bar then, grinning, and draped an arm over her shoulders, giving her a bit of a hug as he looked around at all the vine-wrapped criminals. "Nice honeysuckle" he said, laughing, and he wanted for her to call for backup before walking over to one of the felons.

"I told you you were better off inside with me. Oh well." he said, then shrugged a little, stepped back, and leaned against the car, running a hand along some of the vines affectionately. "Well, I got a confession and the whole nine yards. They're all out like lights from the hyperoxia, so I guess we'll see what happens now, right?"

[adele]

“Indeed. And when talking doesn’t work he just suffocates them,” Adele said with a cheery smile that seemed out of place given the topic of conversation, but it was mostly in jest. Mostly. Sometimes she thought her brother’s only saving grace was that he’d never actually killed anyone in interrogation.

The skirmish in the alley outside the bar had drawn her attention while it lasted, but when no more bad guys came rushing out, she let it go, especially at Headhunter’s mention of the Obliterator. She may not have met the man yet, but she knew of him. Almost everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. did. Just like she knew of Headhunter.

It was rather a treat to get to work with both of them.

“Right,” she agreed, nodding to the other woman and taking the offered phone. Adele didn’t mind calling it in and the rumors around Headhunter were enough that she had some small idea of what she meant. “I’ll hold you to it,” she said a bit teasingly just before her brother came out.

She accepted his half hug with another smile as she held the phone to her ear and made the call, elbowing him lightly in the ribs at the “Nice honeysuckle” comment.

“This is Dryad. Send a clean up crew to our location. Yes, status is norm. How many?” Adele blinked and looked over her shoulder back into the bar for a second. “I don’t know, I didn’t stop to count. Three trucks maybe?” There was a pause and Adele gave a small sigh before switching the phone to her other ear. “So take a headcount when you get here and if that’s too many, bill me for the gas,” she said in a completely reasonable, calm tone before closing the phone and handing it back to Headhunter.

“They should be here in ten,” she said before slipping both hands in her jeans pockets and watching her brother pet her plants. “We’ll see,” she acknowledged quietly. “At least mine are still conscious.” In her pocket, she rubbed the thumb and forefinger of her right hand together in a small, light motion and the honeysuckle behind Zephyr snuck up in silent growth to wrap a few of its tinier but more stubborn tendrils around the belt loops of his pants.

Hidden away in Headhunter’s bag, the honeysuckle blossom closed lightly at the same time, the flower protected against its environment with just a tiny bit of Dryad’s power. If Gwen kept it, it would stay fragrant for days without water, weeks with it. And no, Adele thought nothing odd about offering flowers to people she’d only just met.

[hydra]

Headhunter nodded with approval as Dryad phoned SHIELD and asked for the transport. These two kids had potential, it was nice to see a brother and sister team working so well actually since most split in half and one inevitably went evil. Wait...that was TV...or a comic book or something terrible like that.

Taking back her phone Headhunter looked around for a moment, it was a brilliant sight to see mobsters ensnared by plants that they once thought nothing of. Looking to Zephyr for a moment then Dryad Headhunter took a puff from her cheroot.

"You both have done good tonight. I will admit, I was surprise when Zeph there appeared out of nowhere inside and handled ground control. And you Dryad, the important back-up with flower power, a nice tying up of the situation, but the most important thing here tonight was no-one died for us. I can tell...you two have a future in this business." Headhunter smiled, placing two cigars on the bonnet of one of the entangled cars and SHIELD transport arrived.

Turning her back to the agents arriving Headhunter headed inside, looking at Obliterator at the bar she smiled and took a seat on a stool opposite him. Pouring herself a drink she exhaled a cloud of smoke beofre holding her cigar in between the fingers on her right hand while holding her glass in her left.

"So....Thanks for showing up by the way, I didn't know if you would for a moment....." Pausing a moment Headhunter took a sip from her glass and looked to the behemoth of SHIELD, "Listen. I've been thinking of putting a field group together, since Director Sage has her hands full with the Initative, Magneto and the X-men, Avengers and such. But the thing is...I wouldn't go ahead unless I had you watching my back."