Scaredy Cat! [crane]

[Catwoman]

Players: Catwoman, Scarecrow.
Location(s): Warehouse, East End.
Plot Summary: After the feline felon busted one of Crane's operations several weeks prior, the Master of Fear has his revenge in sight...

Crack! Selina's whip sprawled out from the shadows of the alleyway where she crouched and curled, taut, around the firearm that a thug had just been using to terrorize an unfortunate woman with. With another flick of her wrist, Catwoman wrenched the weapon from the hand of it's owner. The pistol fell and slid in the frosting of snow that glazed Gotham City, and finally halted neatly in front of two leather boots. Selina emerged from the darkness. The unforgiving scorn from her gaze pierced through her goggles. The woman pressed against the slimy brick wall gave a stuttering gasp of relief. Meanwhile, the thug that had been harassing her at gunpoint looked between his empty hand, and the Princess of Plunder, trying to connect the dots.

"Not so big and strong without your toy, are you?" Catwoman's voice still maintained it's signature purr, but it did nothing to soften the severe edges of loathing that trimmed her question. There were few things she detested more than a man with a gun. Guns were so easy. Anyone could put their finger to a trigger and feel empowered, when really they were just fooling themselves. Take the pistol away, and what did you have? Well, the gangster standing in front of Catwoman gave the perfect answer, via his actions.

The asshole ran.

"I don't think so." Selina gave a third twitch of her arm, and there came another crack! Instantaneously, the woman's whip wrapped ruthlessly around the fleeing man's neck. Catwoman gave a heave, trying not to derive too much satisfaction to the guttering yelp the scumbag gave, deep in his throat. Selina stepped smoothly to the side, allowing the man's backwards trajectory to bring him directly beneath her prepared heel-drop. There was another crack that had nothing to do with the thief's whip, and then an unconscious jerk lay at her feet on a carpet of snow and littered debris. Catwoman turned to look at the woman she'd saved, now in a distressed fetal position on the ground.

"Not from the East End?" Selina didn't have to wait for the shaking nod that the woman gave. Any girl who was from her part of town wouldn't have been so unnerved by what had just happened. Catwoman knelt down and expertly extricated a wad of cash from the pocket of the gangster. Fingering out a certain number of bills, Selina pressed the sheaves of currency into the twitching fingers of the woman, and crouched beside her. "Here. Go catch a cab into a better part of the city. I'll clean up here." The woman muttered an incoherent thanks, and stumbled numbly off.

Catwoman busied herself with trussing the creep she'd just taken care of. In the past few weeks, she'd gotten good enough that she could hog-tie the average piece of trash she took down in the alleys, and have them waiting for the authorities to pick them up in less than thirty seconds. "Hey, Oracle," Selina said, pressing a button she'd had added to her cowl when she became an honorary member of the Birds of Prey. "Got another package for our friends at the GCPD waiting." The computer chick replied that she'd synced her location to the Police, but Catwoman hardly listened.

A stray cat had wandered into the alleyway just then, and Selina knew something was dreadfully wrong. The ginger feline looked up at her with wide, feral eyes. He wore a collar that looked like nothing more than straw string, and a battered tag dangled from it. "There, there," Catwoman cooed. Cliche or not, she had a way with her namesakes. She could tame a rampaging lion with fewer words than she had just spoken to the ginger stray now. The cat, however, didn't change it's mood. Something wasn't right. "I'm not going to hurt you, honey." Selina slowly approached the cat. "Let's see if your owner's name is on that tag, and I can get you home?"

Catwoman normally didn't bother felines that were prowling the streets. She let them do what they wished, because she knew exactly how they felt. This cat, though, was obviously distressed. She couldn't do nothing. The stray's eyes widened further still at Selina's approach - it looked terrified. Ginger fur stood on end. The cat gave a harsh hiss, and bolted. Catwoman didn't hesitate. She took off after the thing. Selina was impressed by the speed of the ginger cat, and how well it knew the streets. She almost lost it twice, and never quite caught up over the next ten minutes of pursuit.

Finally, the cat slipped through a gap in the chain-link fence surrounding a trash-strewn lot, and then disappeared into the abandoned warehouse connected to it. Catwoman climbed through a broken window and landed on a dusty catwalk - no pun intended - that hovered near the rafters above a disused, mostly broken assembly line. Selina could see the ginger in a patch of chill silver light that came from a hole in the ceiling, on the production floor down below. The feline seemed to have curled up in an exhausted heap, chest heaving as it tried to catch it's breath. "Now," Catwoman scorned, "at least you've calmed down a bit."

The thief dropped lithely to the floor in the beam of cold moonlight alongside the feline. Her boots didn't even whisper as they touched the molded floor. Selina tenderly picked up the ginger stray and nestled it in the crook of her arm, looking fondly down at it's half-closed jade eyes. "What does your tag say, my little escape artist?" Catwoman held the weathered paper tag to the light, and that feeling of trepidation that she'd had since seeing the sleeping cat in her arm was justified. "Hush, Little Kitty, Don't Say a Word..." There was only one villain in Gotham that quoted that lullaby.

That same villain just happened to be one that Catwoman had busted a few weeks back. Huh, Selina thought, trying to calm herself, who knew that when Crane swears revenge, he actually means it?