The guard did whirl around as soon as he heard the noise, and Desmond's aim was actually true. The pain and shock of it was also enough to stop the sentry from shooting him, but not enough to stop him from shooting—not to mention screaming at the top of his lungs. A shot from his rifle, wild and poorly aimed (see: not aimed at all), rang out across the park along with his shout, stirring up a whole flock of birds from their resting places in the trees.

The guard staggered and snarled. Sedative was a tricky and unreliable thing to use offensively; it seemed it was having the desired effect, but it wasn't the kind of thing that would render a completely "stealth" incapacitation like in the movies. Needless to say, the other gunmen were on high alert, and Desmond would have just seconds before shots were flying his way.

Meanwhile, down inside the hideout, Ace's aggressor had just unbarred and yanked open the door to give the cat a nice what-for when the muffled noises of gunfire reached them.

The thug glanced back over his shoulder at his cohorts and squinted in confusion.

"So much for th'element of surprise," blurted Casey incredulously. Though it wasn't exactly what they had planned, at least the gunmen weren't focused on the courtyard. So, without further ado, he grabbed a couple grenades off his vest, plucked both their pins, and lobbed them with well-practiced accuracy over the fence, and right onto the skylight.

One bounced a little off the mark, but the other stayed well within the glass-and-steel circle. With a nice, resounding explosion, the makeshift entrance was blown wide open, leaving a gaping (but sharp and hazardous) hole, smoldering right in the middle of the park. Casey bounded the ten foot fence like it was nothing, proving his unfitting mobility, and barreled straight for the goal. As he did, he readied and chucked another grenade into the hole; as soon as the pillar of flame and smoke shot up to signify that it had gone off, he hopped right into the open skylight.

In just seconds, he'd be down in the belly of the hideout, gun blazing, warcry blaring ("AHHHHHHHH" was the best he could think up on the spot, never having been a terribly clever man as far as wordplay went), making the biggest ruckus he possibly could, even though he truthfully couldn't see anything through the smoke and debris. With any luck, the less professional of Li Fang's thugs would just get the heck away from the source of explosions, bullets, and screaming.

Ace's feet were still shackled, so he couldn't run. So, as the cat ineffectually tripped at his target, the thug, though caught off guard, just... stumbled across the hall, and caught himself against the wall. He soon rounded on his insubordinate prisoner with vengeful, unrelenting swipes from his lug wrench. His two friends seemed way more concerned with what was going on just beyond the next door, however, zig-zagging like chickens with their heads cut off. It seemed they were caught between advancing on the atrium where the explosions were happening, and retreating back again, only to again remember they were in a dead end—alone, no less.



Meanwhile, in Li Fang's office, the big man himself was packing up shop. Dian had already arrived, armed and ready, and toting the mirror in its hefty box, while Li Fang collected his computer, a few important-looking files, and a large briefcase. He was not a fearful man in any way, but he was sensible, so while he didn't move with any panic, he did move with great haste.

It wasn't fast by any standards that weren't upheld by sloths or slugs, but with all the commotion (see: gunfire, screaming, gratuitous explosions, and more gunfire) going down, it didn't need to be. Out of the shadows adjacent to Casey and his rag-tag-alongs darted yet another player, who, despite setting out before the hog made his dash, only just barely reached the skylight after him, briefly seizing a bit of the twisted metal frame that the boar's doorstop gift had left behind, and vaulting into ground zero.

The smoke at the bottom of the drop both aided and obfuscated all at once, but Latika didn't waste time looking around; she hit the ground running headed for the nearest wall or cover, and promptly thudded smack into a very panicked, very ugly (not that she could tell) canine of indiscriminate make and model. An alarmed, "Aaah!" escaped the loris' lips before she could clap her hands over her mouth, and she jigged around the source of her sudden stop, headed resolutely in the direction from which they came.

The moment he spent firing the dart went by almost in slow motion as the ferret took a second thought of his actions. "Couldn't I have been a bit quieter?" Hearing the guard scream loud enough to attract attention (plus the random burst fire) immediately threw that idea out of the window.

Back to current event's, Desmond took a split second to realize that the sedative didn't work as soon as he expected. "They said these rounds could put out a gorilla!" he yelled aloud as he lunged for the gunmen who was still staggering a bit at the shot he received. Setting his sights for the gunman's weapon, he positioned his forearm to knock over the larger fellow and which case he would fire a couple more of the darts into him before taking the rifle and escaping the ensuing enemy reinforcements via jumping into a window of the building he occupied, quite foolish, but he had no other option that gave him the same cover.

This would have to be quick because the second guard patrolling a building close by was taking sight on the ferret assaulting his comrade.

To Scott: For future reference, you cannot just assume that Ace was "beaten to a pulp" on the floor until he posts that he was, as written in the consent rule. The NPC attack was an attempt to do so to Ace, and Greens' reply will determine whether or not that attempt was effective. That's how RPing here works. You can only play your own characters, not other people's. Similarly, they cannot play yours. (The only exception is when the Inactivity Rules are violated, in which case you can take over other players' characters at will, but that's something else entirely.)

Similarly, ask permission before manhandling NPCs. Sometimes it's okay to decide what happens to NPCs, but if it's a recurring NPC with a "face" and an identity, and not a faceless, once-off goon, you generally don't have the right to say what happens to him.

Desmond's tranquilizers were enough to take out the thug; it's just that tranquilizers never took anything out instantly, hence the screaming and shooting. After all, what would Desmond have done if someone shot him with a barbed, high-velocity needle out of the blue in the middle of the early-morning hours? It hurt and it was pants-messing-alarming, to be frank. That said, the guard would have passed out on his own once the payload had time to circulate in a few seconds, but the addition of a few more darts more was indeed enough to finish the job permanently. His head sank and hit the concrete with a dead thump. The other gunmen meanwhile seemed to have a hard time tracing Desmond's movements as he retreated to cover, as the shooting stopped just as abruptly as it began. He had successfully eluded them for the time being.

Meanwhile, down in the subway, the battle raged on. Whatever may have been happening to Ace, Wyatt's charged blast sure enough hit its mark, sending him twisting and torquing off to the side in a sizzling spiral, before flopping on the floor. He sat there on hands and knees, head slumped down, dizzy and weak from the shock.

... He still had two buddies there, though, not to mention Tracer and Archer, who were just arriving on the scene through the only point of entry. Things weren't looking good.

Just outside the door, in the atrium, Casey and Latika would find that there... wasn't yet a whole lot of opposition. Actually, as the smoke and dust cleared, it seemed everybody was just gone. There was distant shouting, and the sounds of what were likely people coming their way, but for the moment, there was nothing to oppose them.

It just so happened that the random path Tyra took put her in the actual "station" of the subway, where boarding was intended to take place—and, lo and behold, there was actually a train there. Despite being abandoned, it looked like there was an entire subway train being loaded up to depart right then and there. There were several guys in suits and a lot of armed opposition milling about, some at the ready, others carrying boxes and equipment, but, thankfully, she hadn't been seen just yet. Being unarmed and relatively unassuming, maybe she almost blended in, in a way, with all the chaos going on; it wasn't like she was the only girl there, either.