Participants:
| Scene Title | Cash Withdrawal |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Fate brings a random collection of scions to deal with a monster banker (no, not Madoff) |
Your typical marble faced edifice focused on the collection of money.
It is a sunny New York afternoon in early July. A hot muggy heat grips the afternoon streets, the concrete reflecting the sun back up roasting the pedestrians. Traffic is bad on the workday streets, worse than usual. That is because, in front of the Federal Bank cars have stopped and been abandoned. In the background horns wail in frustration, but close to the bank there is a din of activity. People seem to be trying to get into the doors on the marble faced edifice. Lots of people. Maybe all the people! Like rushing a stage at a concert, or going for the last lifeboat on the Titanic, dozens of people crush forward to the rotating doors, all trying to go through at once. If it is not, someone is going to get hurt!
Kailin bypasses cars backed up by simply weaving between them on his motorcycle, leaning left and right to get around what has become increasing annoying side view mirrors. He furrows a brow at the empty cars and his look turns towards the bank. "Is it Free Money Tuesday already? Seven days go by so fast…" He pushes his Ducati forward as he hops the curb and speeds closer to the mass of people. Sliding off his machine, Kailin stands it up and slips in towards the mass of people, joining the group as they press towards the doors. "I want my two dollars!"
Peter walks down the street, sweating in his full suit but refusing to let it bother him. He hasn't even loosened his tie. He furrows his brow as he turns the corner onto the street with the bank, seeing the ruckus. While he does not stop he does slow his pace, trying to ascertain what is going on. As he watches, his jaw sets. He looks at the disturbance, of the people pushing forward and the rotating door moving slugglishly. Stepping forward he moves closer to the mob, and after a moments consideration he sets down his brief case and raises his hands. "People! Stop! Someone is going to get hurt!" It has about as much effect as a gnat versus a windshield. He takes a deep breath, and seems to stand a bit tall, "My friends! This is not the time to be fighting for money so that others can get hurt. Here me, listen to me! The bank is solid, the time is plenty." The way he speaks, everyone stops and listens. There is an obvious reverbation here. This man has been touched by God. Well Goddess. And for the moment they do stop to hear. And maybe they even feel better about themselves. But once his speech is done, they feel much better about all trying to bash down the front doors. Inside the rotating door, a woman is now stuck, screaming in pain, one arm and one leg sticking out, while the body is in. Still people push the door to try and get in.
It's in that line of cars that Glory is stuck, only a few spaces down from the bank itself. The woman blinks as she looks at the bank, and it's Kailin's slow movement on his bike that first catches her attention, only to have her getting out as she motions for her driver to meet her in front of the bank if he gets to move. She only gets a few spots from the car when Peter arrives and starts his speech and she just blinks once, looking from him to the bank and then back, her eyes searching for Kailin and then searching the area itself.
Danny is in the neighborhood, taking another one of his long walks through the city. He twirls his cane and stops to look at the sudden rush of people trying to get inside some building. He frowns, and heads over closer. "Excuse me," he says politely, shouldering his way through the press of people. You can never be too careful in New York, and this situation certainly bears investigation. "Coming through."
Kailin swims through the crowd, easily enough, gentle nudging and a soft shove there. He buttons his jacket as he goes, making sure it isn't ripped away from him in the mass rush of psychotic people. His gloved hands firmly reposition people as he takes a place towards the front. "Hey, someone get that lady out of the door! She's clogging it up for everyone else!" He keeps moving forward, and takes ahold of the door, pulling it on it firmly with both gloved hands.
Kailin and Danny easily make it to the front, the former grabbing hold of the rotating door. The strength of Yankee Hero is not match for the Yankee non-Heroes, or the door itself. With a low creak he easily pulls the door back, freeing the woman. But she apparently does not want her freedom. Arms and legs freed, she gets fully into the rotating door, "Mine!" she calls, pushing again, still futilely against Kailin's strength. With neither a whisper of thanks nor a reason why, she is back in the mob that nearly injured her severely.
After taking a half moment to look over the scene before her, the woman known as Glory moves a few steps backwards and pulls that long golden stick with the nice double blade head from the limo, and then she's moving towards the bank. While she has the strength to knock people off her feet, she simply moves with one swirl of her skirts and then a sway of her braids as she slips between people making her way towards the doors. Of course a few people are nudges, settled, and more than likely moved out of her without being touched much. If anyone makes movements in a mass like a dance, Glory does, or tries.
As Danny makes it to the door, he pauses to take stock. "Has anyone figured out what's going on here?" he comments to the only other familiar face nearby, Kailin. Without waiting for an answer, he attempts to peer through the door, or, failing that, get inside himself. "What, are they giving away free money?"
Peter sets picks up his briefcase, not at all perturbed that his call was not heeded. He seems focused on other things, including holding tightly to his briefcase. Using his broad shoulders and natural strength, he pushes into the mass of people but only gets about halfway through the mob. He is not as able as the other heroes in that Fate has drawn together.
It is impossible to see into the lobby through the mass of people. There is certainly some kind of draw there, something acting on the hapless mortals that seems to not be affecting the God spawn at all. The continue to push forward without reason or care. Now that the woman is freed of the rotating walls of glass, they resume their function as well as they can with each compartment holding four or five people. It would take someone of great skill and grace to be the one of the lucky few to actually make their way through the door.
Kailin is already at the door when it gets freed and he gives a quick cheer when the doors resume their normal operation. He squeezes himself into one of the compartments, using his large size and superior strength to keep out anyone else from joining. "Club's full!" He pulls the door around behind him and an arm bar to keep others out, a completely superfluous gesture as they continue to fill in through other compartments. Still he has a second and a half to himself. He steps out inside the bank and pulls down his shades slightly, looking around for the source of the draw.
With everyone pressed into the center of the doors, the late arriving Glory decides to try something else. With a glance towards Kailin wherever he went, she moves with another flicker of her skirts towards the side door, it's of course being pressed by people as well, but somehow she picks the right time, and slides past a small fat man, who has given enough room for her body to move through the door and into the bank, here, she steps out of the line of fight for the mortals… hopefully.., and takes a moment to narrow her eyes and find out what she can see.
Kailin pages: I've got spatial awareness and I'm going to use a Legend for Scent the Divine
Kailin pages: The spatial awareness Knack, that is. In case my eyes can't get to what I'm after.
You paged Kailin with 'You smell three scions near you, but they all seem to be abreast you, or behind you — none ahead.'
The people who make it inside see the source of the confusion. There is a thing standing atop the counter that separates the tellers from the customers with a bag of money. You can tell it is a bag of money because it has a huge green $ symbol on it, even though money bags don't really have such markings. This one does. It says in a raspy voice, "Yessss! Yessss! Fightsss for the paperssss! Beat each other for the papersssss! Dieeeeee for the papersssss!" And that is exactly what the people in the lobby are doing. For every bill that gets tossed down, six pairs of hands grab for it. The five pairs that don't get it quickly turn on the one that does. It is no longer a crush of people, it is a brawl as woman attacks man, child attacks adults, risking life and limb for a $100 bill.
And what does thing look like? Glad you asked! Griswald stands barely five feet tall, and nearly that wide. There is no way this thing can pass for human. Leathery grey-skin, bald save for scraggly white hair around his neck that trails down over his shoulders, and a nose larger than a pastrami! Most of 'his' body is a sphere with impossibly thin arms and legs that seems to be made of pipe wire rather than joints. There is no way those tiny things could support the medicine-ball like body, yet they do. His lips are held back by a rictus revealing two glittering rows of sharp tearing teeth that look as if they are made of diamonds. It wears clothes, a moldy bankers suit from the 19th century. The waist coat strains to cover its perfectly round belly, buttons holding the garment together valiantly.
Danny frowns as he managed to press his way inside and see the litle goblin-thing. He quickly palms the silver head of his cane and gives it a few twists, unscrewing it to reveal a sharpened metal point, a spear head in fact. He looks around at the seething mob, and shakes his head. "This won't do," he says, beginning to rise into the air until he's hovering near the ceiling, above the grand melee on the ground. He hefts his spear and takes aim at the obvious titanspawn.
Griswald sees the threat and throws the bag of money up in the air, which explodes as he prepares for battle. The room showers with green bills, people jumping to get up and grab their share, and then some. This does not stop anyone fighting the monster, just frees up his hand to draw his own weapon — an old bill spindle cased with the blood of the greedy. "You thinkssss you can ssstops me?" He brandishes the 4" spindle menacingly.
The might spear whistles through the air. Griswald scrambles down the counter almost faster than the eye can follow, but not faster than the spear of sky. The thing pierces him through the chest and he crumples around it. Now crawling, feebly, towards the back of the bank, trying to get some kind of cover, perhaps. Or just to see lovely money one more time. Glory wades into the melee, protecting the the vulnerable from the harder people in the fight for money — stopping and old lady from getting trampled on here, while shoving a teen out of the way there. Her actions save lives.
"What are you doing, Fat Gollum?" Kailin stands near the back and shakes his head as the thing gets speared. "Well, so much for that…" He watches the money fall and pushes his shades back up onto the bridge of his nose. He crosses his arms as the people fight around him for the money, interested to see where that goes when the money is all grabbed up.
Griswald is not actually diving behind the counter, he is diving into the till of one of the tellers. You would think that a 5 foot wide beach ball with legs could fit in a simple drawer, but he is making a credible attempt to do just that! Half the the spherical body has gone into the impossibly small space, the other half sticking out like a setting sun or, on this case, a rising moon.
Danny smiles victoriously as his spear hits home. He raises his arm as if reaching for something, and the spear materializes in his hand instantly. He takes another few moments to aim, wanting to make his next shot count as much as the first one.
Peter tries valiantly to get in, but fails to do any better than the regular humans still pushing, trying to get in.
Griswald continues to struggle and disappears into the till, smaller and smaller until finally, there is nothing left to be seen. The drawer stands there open, with only green bills and a 4" bill spindle, caked with blood. With the disappearances of the what-the-hell-was-it, the fluttering bills fade away, as does the rampant greed of human patrons. A general miasma of confusion falls as it appears no one quite realizes what they were doing. The first coherent action is that of a middle-aged man (not Peter) pointing up at the flying figure going, "Oh my god!!"
Danny groans as the crowd snaps out of the spell. "Oh, great. Publicity." He looks around for a high window or something else to make his escape quickly, though he does this while zooming towards the spindle. It looks interesting.
Peter finally makes it into the lobby still being the only person on the outside determined to actually get in. He looks around, spying the flying man but missing the other two scions in the room due to his lack of special sensing skills. Straightening his tie, he quietly makes his way out, looking very pertubed that in his first call to action, he failed to contribute at all.
Kailin glances up towards Danny, who seemed perfectly willing to kill the thing. and continues standing amid the chaos, waiting for people to get even more stupid than they already have gotten. He asks, "So what the hell were you people thinking? How many of you left your cars in the street to rush in here for a couple hundred dollars? If so, I hope your multiple thousand dollar vehicles are gone by now…" He shakes his head and asks, "Where is a Scion of Darwin when you need on?"
Danny was able to keep the unremarkable 4" bill spindle as a souveneir of the encounter.
Grismald is still at large (for what that is worth — this is not a specific plot hook).
