Robert’s Saturday morning odd encounter(Tenzin)
Date: 2025-09-06 10:20
(Robert’s Saturday morning odd encounter(Tenzin):Tenzin)
[Sat Sep 6 2025]
On Madison Avenue/span>/spanmorning/span>/span75F(23C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Woodcrest/span>/span(Your target has been abducted and is being held hostage by a supernatural criminal out to trade them for something or just use them as a shield against the factions. Your target must attempt to find a way to escape, or simply survive until they can be rescued by their allies.
)
Robert is warming up for the day – armed and armored for war, moving out of the stiffness of the morning by first working through his exercises, a bit of a walk, and then driving over to Natural History Museum. Alas, running the hats of leadership -and- maintaining their fronts and efforts was an exhausting circumstance on the best of days.
All of New Haven knows who Robert is. Not only is he a pioneer of the culinary arts — he is Director and Captain. A man who has made enemies of the very gears that make the city turn. One who wields power enough, that many would think twice before engaging.
But on a day like today, the first sign of weakness draws sharks like blood in the water.
There is no sound; a glistening shard is just that, a gleam that is gone all too soon. Robert feels it. The stab of a needle into one place his stab vest does not protect.
Someone has tranqed him in the bum.
This isn’t the first time Robert has been tranqd, though usually he’s so full of stimulants and adrenaline that all it does is make him a wobbly and very, very angry. He falters a step, his booted foot thumping across the concrete as his automatic response is to pull it out – and then the blackness starts to arrive.
With struggling hand he presses a thumb to his ear to the comms, and rattles off, “Martingale, Margaret send… someone,” He says with strained effort before the drugs take over. I mean, really. Right in front of Last Vigil HQ?!
The interloper must be stupid or crazy, or both. One such hunchbacked figure falls off of a nearby roof. The pavement crunches under its landing. “I did it?! I did it! Oh joy!” The frantic panting of a hooded madman draws closer. The last thing Robert sees is a mime’s makeup and the gap-toothed grin of one who has won the lottery.
Over the mundane inquiries of an altai-russified baritone about tactical boards, the familiar voices of Robert’s connections respond with little delay. “Can you give us your location?” “I am tracing him now.”
The street is a rough surface upon which Robert is dragged. This villain’s escape route is much too convenient — a manhole that he had left open for himself.
The darkness swallows Robert whole. He is dragged into the sewers.
Alas, Robert has no superhuman abilities nor stimulants in his pocket, which results in him going prone and hitting a concrete floor rather hard, as best he can as his arms. And combined with falling -down- a manhole, he’ll end up slimy, bruised, and otherwise not thrilled as liquid flight-or-fight pumps through his veins, struggling to rise him back from the coma he’s fallen in. His hand twitches, as he focuses on that, trying to worm it for the taser he always keeps tucked out-of-sight and within reach.
“You are a lucky, lucky man, Robert Downey Martin Luther King, Jr.,” the madman banters with his quarry. Crouching through tunnels and taking turns at junctions, he hauls him through the sludge by the leg. He only pauses to rip out a sizable length of duct tape and wind them around Robert’s ankles. “Many things I hear of you! Hunter of the Hated. Doomer of the Damned! But but but I give to you a new title,” he giddily giggles. It’s as if he were doing his captive a favor.
“Behind every great lieutenant, is a pile of sacrifices that got him promoted.” He emphasizes with a reflective pair of eyes glowing in the dark like a dog’s. “That is you. You are the sacrifice. A big one,” he makes sure the profoundness of his speech is not lost on Robert.
In Robert’s earpiece, he might hear pieces of his allies’ strategy. “… under the… heading west…. armed….”
“The 63rd will have to hire me now!” he cackles, too topped up on the high of his success and his own hubris to notice Robert going for his taser.
The madman pauses to listen to the quiet of the sewers. “Suddenly, there are many. Many boots go stomping.”
Robert is a bit rattled, though part of him wonders where the man was ranting about the rest of that name. He gives the maniac a groggy stare, as if he’s half alert, staring back with half-awake eyes to the maniac. “Maintenance tunnels,” He murmurs about them. Up and down, with the occasional fall for someone to get trapped in.
He wraps a grip around his taser and shifts, rolling his shoulders and trying to wake up. And then he jabs forwards, lunging with the taser right into his captor’s leg, depressing the button as he rolls. Turnabout is fair play, right?
“No matter. We keep going.” Robert may soon enough hear that which only the maniac could. There’s no mistaking the armored advance of the Vigilants. Closest to him, they may very well arrive first.
“How big a legion can I trade you for? Can you tell?” the madman squawks at Robert. His eyes go much too wide. “Will I get the hellhounds? The nightmare cavalry? The abominations?!” he drools at the prospect.
Maintenance tunnels, Robert said. “Hmwhat was that, Promoter of Punishers?” BZZZZZT! Agonizing volts of electricity zap the madman to convulsion. He flops into the wet waste, weakened and breathless. “Rob-bert… Martin… D-Downey…” The kidnapper struggles to his knees, unable to retaliate.
“This way, they’ve stopped!” A voice echoes from the way they had come. Flashlights swish in the darkness. “Captain!”
“Nothing. You will trade me for… nothing.” Comes the words, leaden and heavy as the man flops over to one side, having spent his energy and his eyes still swimming from the drugs. Not that any of that’s visible behind the sunglasses. He’s once again thankful for those dark things when he’s caught full in the face with a beam. He raises a hand to salute with his non taser-holding hand, a lazy gesture towards the oncoming pair. “Well done, men.” Robert manages to mete out, casual and languid as if here was exactly meant to be.
“Grab him and tie him up for – questioning.” He orders. “Give me a moment to catch my breath.”
The Vigilants Two give Robert a firm nod and move on the madman, wasting no time. Their numbers may be few, but that is all the more reason this duo knows better to subdue a foe than pepper him with monologue. The mime-faced culprit ought to learn a thing or two.
“No! Unhand me, zealots! I will rrrrrrain my unholy fury upon your behinds!” the maniac drums the R out of that verb with intense passion. He thrashes once the groggy phase has passed, only to be met in the face with another taser. “Hrgghh– bane of dragons and demons,” he chokes.
Robert produces a slim hunting knife eventually, cutting through the bonds at his legs and rolling over, getting to his feet. He doesn’t bother brushing himself off. It would just smear the caked filth around further. He sighs, rising to his feet and taking a moment to straighten up. “Tie him up and lead the way out of here. Split another team and see if you can find out where he was taking me. We’ll see if he has anything useful to say in processing.”
He gives the mime an almost dismissive glance. “Another traitor of humanity.”
“On it, Captain,” one Vigilant curtly nods. The other echoes in tandem. “A traitor can only be a traitor if humanity has embraced him to begin wit– BZZZTauaghgh!/span>/spaninstruments?”
They escort Robert out without further incident. Just one or two rats in the way, easily kicked.
Robert tries not to sigh at the questioning of tools. Instead, he offers a sunny smile. “Perhaps we should take some time to look into CIA interrogation methods? Particularly world war two? There’s no need to torture people when a sandwich and a genuine conversation will do the job. And we don’t need to make more enemies than we already have…” He murmurs as his steps slowly become more steady.
“Definitely take some blood samples. And fingerprint him, of course.”