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Unfortunately, one of the voices decided to make it's presence known as CJ was scrambling for the vent. A thin, ghost white, emaciated figure slid partially out of the vent to meet him. A wide, boney smile on it's face.
“Well, since you demanded that we come out...” the man said, then “ghosted” the rest of the way out of the vent.

The other voice, which still sounded as though it were in the room, sighed deeply. ”That is NOT what we were told to do.”

“Well he said to come out. Somehow he could hear us speak. Usually only the dead can do that, and this guy was only close to being dead. Interestin'. Besides, maybe if we help him go a little crazier, we'll meet our month's quota within one day.” The boney man said to the other voice, moving towards the dead man. He pulled out two Greecian coins from his outfit, then flipped the torturer over.

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Dillon smiled and crossed his arms. ”You got it.” he replied. Then he moved over to the nearest electrical outlet, and pressed his shoe against hit. His body lit up into a ball of energy, and a moment later he had vanished into electrical box.

The man chuckled out loud. Obviously finding something funny about something CJ had said. ”Underworld actually. But Hell's close enough.” he said. Then he flipped the corpse over, placed a coin under the man's tongue. ”I am Aethon. The other voice that I'm sure you heard was Aristeus. No relation to the more “famous” Aethon and Aristeus, mind you. But, people like to name their sons from names of history and all that. Even if they're more infamous than famous.”

There was a heavy sigh, and then the other voice spoke again. Still no sign of a body though. ”Just leave him be and let him get on with what he needs...” the voice scolded.

”We're here to send the fresh bodies straight to the ferry where Cheron is waiting.” Aethon continued, ignoring his “friend”. ”Basically we're just scavenging for new recruits that you humans just pick off. This isn't usually our jurisdiction, but your girl's kind of made it easier for us to be here. Deal with the devil and all. Well, MULTIPLE deals at this rate.”

”Why don't you tell him all about the Underworld and how he can look forward to living there for eternity once he's finally expired while you're at it.” Aristeus growled threateningly.

Aethon stood and dusted off his boney hands. A cheeky grin wrapped around his face. ”Nah. I don't wanna scare him off. Not when he could fall through the bottom of an air vent and slide straight down the entire forty-eight floors to the cement basement below. Or manage to avoid all the killers outside just in time for the heafty human to break his back or sit on him.” he said, then began laughing as though the sight would have been hillarious.


/// Sorry about lack of activity. Busy week + toothache turned into an abscess + no dentists open until Monday + … well you get the idea. No possible way I was able to sit out in the parking lot for wifi. -___- '''' ///

The two men just stared at CJ and blinked. They exchanged an uneasy glance once, then looked back at CJ and blinked. Then one of the men shook his head to try and clear his thoughts. This was going to be.... interesting. Like... this has never happened before interesting.

"Well... I suppose to answer your questions..." the first man began.
"You don't. Miss Gallay began her debt with our master quite some time ago, and has racked up quite an expence. You are free to try and trade your stay in the Afterlife for someone else. But I'm afraid she's pretty much bound to our home for the rest of her afterlife."

"As for the "selling your soul to the devil".... it was more of a trade really. If you get killed here, then you just come along with us, we'll get you fixed back up and send you back up here to the world of the living. With the expectation that you'll come back here when you die again of course. If you don't get killed at any point.... well you'll still come with us. Sort of the price for a get-out-of-jail-free card. In exchange for her card, we're claiming everyone who gets killed in this building from now on."

"Honestly we wouldn't have even come down here if your girl hadn't dropped surgical equipment on top of herself."

"To specify, she tried to free herself while pumped with medication and drugs. Her powers dont' work so well then. Tried to pick the locks with a knife, levitated the tray over to her, passed out for a moment, the knife went into her neck, woke up, tried to pull it out with her powers, and it went sideways instead of straight."

"And then here we are!"

The weakness that Yuriko had spotted was indeed where the Batwoman had entered with her impromptu Irish sidekick, elevator and all, but after that, she had essentially become the shadow she had been taught to become, moving silently along the conveniently spacious vent space and forcing Aiden to move as silently as possible; maybe it was because of the streetfighting he had boasted about at one point, but he seemed remarkably light on his feet, moving almost as silently as Brenda herself, which certainly surprised the Bat.

In the meantime, Brenda was half-focused on her sneaking, and half-focused on using her smartphone to map out schematics of the building just as Yuriko was doing. She had done this, and was intentionally moving through the vents as silently as possible, doing her best to try to find a place that didn't have surveillance and was also a place people wouldn't think to look. As it so happened, she stopped above a mostly-empty hallway; mostly, because there was a lone guard along the mid-level floor she and Aiden were at. She moved to one of the grated vent openings and began to slowly undo the locks that held it in place, moving as quietly as possible and occasionally looking to Aiden to tell him nonverbally to keep his mouth shut as she worked.

Brenda quietly moved to the side opposite Aiden and finished her work after the guard had moved past, quietly taking the grate and setting it down on it's side, propped up against the ventilation shaft's interior, before she silently leaped down behind the guard and put him in a chokehold. Once he was out, Brenda moved back to the vent as Aiden jumped down.

"Right! So... What th' feck do we do now?" the Irishman asked, and Brenda looked back at him stoically, face impassive behind her cowl.

"The elevator we used to get to this floor of the building was the 'D' service elevator," she said, her tone soft. "There are going to be some problems with it; remember when I moved up out of the door at the top of it to the cables that work to move elevators up and down?"

"Yeah."

"I messed with the cable, and it should snap right about..." she looked to the schematics on her phone, which now showed the "D" service elevator path in red, indicating a problem. "Now. It's not snapped all the way, but it'll definitely be inoperable now until they fix it."

"Sweet! So... Now what?" Aiden asked, and Brenda moved toward the elevator near them.

"Now... You serve as a distraction for me. This is the 'E' service elevator, and the floor below us has multiple security guards; according to what I've been able to find, none of them have lethal weaponry. I need you to move down one floor and cause a ruckus, distract everyone while I try to find the building's generators and shut them off. Can you do that, O'Connor?"

"Can I? Feck, I'm Irish; bein' loud an' distractin' is natural fer me!" Aiden said happily as he opened the elevator and stepped inside, Brenda following.

"Good. If you actually manage to defeat all the guards, wait for me back on this floor. I won't shut down the elevators if I manage to get to the building's power grid." Brenda said as the door closed, and when Aiden turned to look at her, she was gone, and the hatch above him, suddenly open, closed.

"... Wish I could do that..." Aiden said to himself as he pressed one of the buttons to go down one floor.

((Sorry if some of this makes no sense; I have no idea how elevators really work and was too caught up in this to actually do research, so yeah... Bleh.))

“Hm... Nope. Sorry.” Aethon replied. “If you're marked, you're marked. And your girlfriend marked you so that if you did get killed, we could just bring you back to life. Or just make sure you didn't die at all. She actually asked for that one, but letting you die so we get half a quota is the better deal really.”

“You always have the option of doing what she did years ago.” Aristeus added. “Simply make a deal with our master, Hades, when you meet him. Exchange your slot in the underworld for someone else. You don't want to live with us in the Afterlife, trade that in for someone else.”

“In her case though, she traded the lives of about twelve people or so for her own. Let them all go off and be happy while she stayed behind.” the other said with a smile.

“Tch. Then the head of the mountain came down and pulled her out. She still had her debt to pay afterward, but she's managed to talk her way out of each death. Soon though. Soon she'll be out of passes.” Aristeus grumbled.

The next moment there was a very loud 'bang' on the door. Seems as though the guards had finally found something to try and break down the locked door. Only way to open it was through the Kingpin, or the old man's fingerprint scan.


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It didn't take long before more guards began filling the hallways close to the level Yuriko had issued interest. Ignoring the elevator as it crashed to the bottom floor below. Those who were here for honest business waiting in the lobby below paniced as the elevator shaft exploded with dust and smoke.

Electro kept his focus on the area where the Elevator once was. Going through each wire, and peering through whatever he could to try and see anyone.

"Very well..." Kingpin replied. "Move her to the roof."

As the 'E' service elevator stopped one floor below where Brenda and Aiden had just been, the Dublin Destroyer cracked his knuckles. The doors opened, and he casually strolled out of the elevator, tipping his flat-cap to a guard.

"Top'a th' evenin' t' ya!" he said as the guard gave him a "Dafuq?" look on his face and moved closer. As he did, Aiden gave him a hard right fist to the side of his face, knocking him out in one hit.

"... Ya gobshite!" Aiden continued before continuing his merry stroll and more guards started to come out of the rooms and confront him. However, back at the elevator, Brenda hopped back down inside as the doors closed, proceeding to take the elevator down to the sub-basement level, where the schematics she had managed to get said the building's power grid was located.

Brena ignored the cheery muzak that came from the elevator as she activated the earpiece within her cowl to contact the Batcave.

"Anyone around? Brigade? Alfred?"

"I am here, Miss Wayne," came the familiar voice of Alfred, over the secure connection she had. "And I must say, it's a good thing that I've collected a stockpile of women's wear on the off-chance that Master Bruce became a woman. Or in this case, a duplicate who was a woman took his place here."

Brenda couldn't help but crack a smile. "The Alfred I know got clothes for just such an occasion as well... Guess it doesn't matter the universe; Alfred is still Alfred."

C.J. smirked "You think I'M bad, you oughta see my buddy Arell. He's a freakin' TANK with LEGS!!" he said. Wait, so you're becoming essentially Death?

"For now . . . I just gotta get outta here. Then no more of this s**t. I can already tell I'm gonna be filling out paperwork with the Justice League 'til I fall over DEAD."

If that. Remember, Batmom's down there. She catches us making with the whacking and she'll have BOTH our heads!!

"Nah . . . we'll just say that we know Arell."

That's gonna make it WORSE!!!

Anyways, C.J. smirked. "I must say that I have two friends here. One's the female Batman and the other's a drinkin' buddy of Arell's. They live. The mooks in here that work for Fisk? They're open season, hondos. Now come on . . ." he said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's reap us some souls."

Yuriko analyzed the screen in front of her, which displayed one intruder bashing his way through Fisk's guards. Lady Deathstrike simply pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance at the scene, speaking under her breath in Japanese, <"Explosive diarrhea of an elephant! These guards have the fighting potential of clubbed seals! "> After shaking her head clear of the annoyance, Yuriko tapped her communicator, "Electro, would you go play with the rampaging Irishman. Feel free to making him.... 'well done.' I have a 'bat' to hunt."

With that, Yuriko switched off her open channel, while still receiving transmissions. She then glanced on the building schematic locating where Fisk's decoy was being escorted and decided to get ahead of the 'wagon train.' If I were to ambush them... I would choose this location, Yuriko thought whilst touching a point on the map, Where should I be where I can see her and she not see me.... ah ha! There! Sliding her finger to the location she wants, Yuriko internal calculation with her cyborg brain give her the coordinates of where she needs to be.

Activating the HYDRA teleport ring, Yuriko arrives and stakes out the location. Positioning herself with her back against a wall and in heavy shadows above the 'ambush' corridor on top of a ceiling panel but steadying herself on the framework hold up the ceiling asbestos tiles without smashing through the flimsy panels. Peering through ventilation grill into the corridor below, Yuriko also monitored her cyborg motion detectors -- simply laying in wait.....