[United] Sleepy Hollow

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Lets be frank in Sleepy Hollow
Date of Scene: 08 November 2017
Location: Sleepy Hollow, New York
Synopsis: Summary needed
Cast of Characters: Punisher, Frankenstein, Lara Croft

Punisher has posed:
    Night has fallen in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The town has remained quaint despite being only a little way up the river from the big city. Small churches, graveyards, a big grassy common in the middle of town, and images of the Headless Horseman and pumpkins are everywhere despite being after Halloween. The big crowds have drifted away for another year as the air begins to get colder. Even now, a few lonely snowflakes fall framed in the weak light of the aging street lights.

    Frank Castle is moving along the quiet street towards the famous Covered Bridge that was immortalized by Washington Irving. He knows Boss Bakker has sent men up here. Looking for the fabled Hessian's Head that inspired Irving's tale. Bakker was a Dutchman with dreams of rivaling the Italians and Irish in New York State. According to legend, the Head would grant the owner power although what kind of power was kind of vague.

    Frank pulls his long trenchcoat about him a bit closer as he comes in sight of the bridge. It was well taken care of for the tourists, but even in the moonlight, he could see the marks or history on it. A slight burn there. A horseshoe imprint in a bit of soft wood.

Frankenstein has posed:
Frankenstein takes any attempt at desecration or reanimation of corpses very seriously. He has also gotten word of the blashemes attempted...even for a murderer and in this case he is fully prepared to deal with it in a most physical fashion.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara Croft was inside of her jeep, driving toward the town at lawful speeds withher headlights on, she had some classical music playing inside of the covered Jeep's interior. She glanced at her GPS and saw the destination where she was asked to meet with someone, it was a bar just outside of town.

The jeep's headlights bobbed up and down on the street as she drew closer to the bridge and her eyes rose up to look at it. "Classic Americana." She quietly muttered to herself, her vehicle slowing down...

Lara decided she wanted pictures of the bridge for touristy reasons and for study both. Her black jeep pulled off to the side of the road and after a moment the ioterior lights turned off and the young archaeologist stepped out of the vehicle, showed signs of acknowledging the cold... and went to zip her black leather jacket up while closing the Jeep door with her right elbow.

Punisher has posed:
    Frank pauses as the jeep gets closer and moves to the far side of the street. He was hoping for few eyes here as it was after the Halloween season. As he gets close to the edge of the road, voices can be heard coming up from beneath the bridge. They are heavily accented with New York City, but what they are saying is quite clear as of yet. There is the faint sound of a metal hitting stone though followed by a few choice four letter words. Frank's hand slips into his pocket as he tries to get to the left of the bridge and move down the ridge without falling down the steep ridge.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara turns to face the covered bridge now and in the dark... even with some lamp posts around, it is a notorious sight for sure. "Rather creepy." Lara quietly said to herself while fishing her smart phone out of her right jacket hand warmer. She carefully walked toward the bridge and started to line up some photos, snapping a few of them off.

The sound of footsteps softly moving down the ridge is what drew her eyes toward the bank of Frank. It was dark, he was dressed in dark clothing, but she caught just the barest sight of him before he moved further down. She heard the voices too... barely anyway... so she just assumed it was people doing the same thing she was.

Lara looked back to the bridge, the young British woman muttered. "Oh, Ichabod... Why did you have to lose your head." She softly spoke, mostly to herself.

Frankenstein has posed:
Frankenstein is hardly the most stealthy of individuals though he can if he has to. As it is, he is trundling through the woods as he sees them at the grave sight. He's about to bellow and roar but hasn't crossed that threshold yet. Instead, he looks around and finds a good oak tree. He isn't the Hulk so he can't use it like a bat as he'd wish, but he can damn well push it onto the bastards....as it is he is trying to figure out a destructive angle that doesnt smash headstones

Punisher has posed:
    In the ravine beneath the Ichabod bridge, there are a few very old looking headstones. They seem to almost blend into the rocky ground with the moss growing over them along with the leaves, trash from above, and the stench of rotting organic matter although in this case, it is probably still mostly foilage. There are four men near the old stones. Three have shovels and the fourth stands off to the side with a cigar in his mouth. The smoke curls around his head and adds to the aroma of the place.

    "This has to be the place. Why eles couldn't the horseman cross this bridge, huh?" asks Cigar.

    "Yeah, well, maybe you should did then. Soil is all damn rock," retorted one of the diggers.

    Castle isn't aware of Lara behind him or the fact that a literary monster is lurking in the trees watching what is going on beneath the bridge. His focus is on Cigar. He slowly pulls his hand out of his jacket, removing a large, heavy gun, and pulling back the hammer softly.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara certainly had no idea that a monster was in a tree either, and she'd like to hope it stayed there and stayed out of her mind SHOULD she have known!

Once she had a few pictures taken she stepped around to the side of the bridge and she thought she could better pick out some of the words being spoken down there... so her curiosity became too much to bare, so she decided to head down there herself. Maybe there was an information kiosk or some kind of part of the bridge she wasn't aware of.

Lara went down the ledge in mostly the same wya that Frank had gone moments before, and in fact she tried to look around to see where he'd gone so she'd know where to go as well.

Punisher has posed:
    In front of Lara, Frank is moving down to one knee and taking aim at Cigar as the smoke intensifies around his large, round head. There is suddenly the call of an owl and what sounds like the beat of hooves in the distance. The Diggers stop what they are doing and look around. The dark just seems almost dark now as if the weak street lights were getting worse all of a sudden.

    "What the hell is that?" asks Digger 1. He looks down at the headstone where his shovel had been. He can't read the name due to age, but the stone has a fresh scar in it from the shovel. The three diggers take a step back as the wind picks up and the branches of the trees on either side of the ravine begin to sway and creak.

Lara Croft has posed:
Once she was down there, Lara realized that there wasn't anything special down here for a tourist to be doing... She looked ahead at Frank where he was and then she could hear the voices of the men up ahead... and she could vaguely make out what they were doing in the dark.

About fifteen feet behind Frank, Lara called out. "Excuse me!" She said with a raised voice. A moment later she said it again with an even louder voice.

Lara's right hand went toward her jacket and she dipped it inside against her hoodie to wrap her fingers around the butt of her handgun... her gut told her that something was wrong here and her gut instincts had always been right before, or most of the time anyway.

Punisher has posed:
    "Holy Jeez! Someone's there!" The three Diggers turn toward the sound of Lara's voice already pulling out guns. They are obviously nervous with the night and the sounds around them. "Lady, don't take another step forward," cries a shaky voice from the Diggers. Cigar, however, is being calm. "Knew it wasn't no ghost. Just some busy body down from Boston or something. Ain't Salem enough for you, lady. Go back and tell 'em in Boston that the Sox suck and always will." Cigar is walking towards the sound of Lara's voice mistaken her British accent for old Boston. "I'm not going to ask again so nicely."

    Frank Castle hates being surprised and suddenly hearing Lara's voice behind him does just that. He drops to the ground into the cold mud and leaves biting back the cursewords. He tries to remain still, trying to pick out Lara's form in the dark from where her voice was while still keeping the Bakker Boys in sight as well.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's left hand came out of her jacket with a high powered LED flashlight and she flicked it on. When she saw their guns she suddenly darted toward a rock ledge outcropping and she slammed her back up against it while leaving the flaslight aimed right at the men to hopefully blinde them.

"Wait!" She shouted. "I am Special Agent Lara Croft with SHIELD. I am not here to arrest, or detain anyone. I am simply investigating a crime." Which was true, the beheading of Ichadod Crane... it was just a very old crime.

"Please! I am not here for a fight!" The british woman shouted, having mostly forgotten about Frank for the time being, she'd seen him go down though but she wasn't sure entirely why.

Punisher has posed:
    "Yeah, fight this!" Shots ring out as the flashlight goes on, but they are wild shots. They aim towards the light, but it is way too powerful in their eyes for them to get any kind of measured shots off towards her. "SHIELD's here! That means we gotta be close," comes Cigar's voice. "Keep digging! It has to be here." There are a few more shots towards the light, trying to knock out the blinding light.

    As the echo of shots die away, the sound that could be laughter or perhaps just the wind moves through the branches. A few leaves are still hanging on are knocked loose and swirl about the ground as if something very fast had just rushed by them.

    Frank takes advantage of the Lara distraction. He puts his own weapon back in his coat and begins to crawl to the side, away from the light, as he tries to outflank the bastards as they deal with Lara.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's flashlight was SHIELD-issued, so its powerful... very powerful and she lodged it into the stonewall a few feet to her right, jamming aagainst the stone and the mud. She reached for her phone and lifted it up for the emergency SHIELD channel. She spoke into it, though her voice wasn't loud enough for any of the others to hear her signaling her position and the need of backup... she knew backup was a ways out still too.

Lara leaned her head back against the rock outcropping, she waited for their gunshots to die down and she could hear them laughing? She steeled herself with a couple long breaths and then stepped out from behind the rock and looked right at where one of the two men was... the light all over them.

Lara raised her gun and lined the shot up for his kneecap, she fired!

Punisher has posed:
    Digger 1 goes down as his kneecap suddenly explodes with a pink mist. He cries out in pain as he falls down. Two and Three try to pinpoint Lara. Stil, that light is just blinding them. Their shots are going wild. Trying to shoot in the direction that One had been facing, thinking that is where she is, but they can't see. Suddenly Two is hit and spun as if hit by something large rushing by. Two crashes to the dirt as the sound of hoofbeats is there, but then is gone. Three screams in terror and is emptying his clip wildly in all directions now.

    Cigar is standing back and out of the way. He isn't firing blindly. He will wait until this lady SHIELD agent decides to step forward and check a body. He will wait for.....suddenly he is gurgling in blood as Frank comes up behind Cigar and cuts his throat with this Marine K Bar. Cigar drops, still quivering, into the mud. Frank takes a step forward only to get hit by the rushing wind. His coat flies open, spinning him around looking like a huge black bird coming to land in the ravine.

Lara Croft has posed:
It all happened so fast... She tagged the one guy in the leg, but the others? She wasn't entirely sure what had happened. Lara had been in plenty of heart racing situations before and she'd actually become a junky for that kind of adrenaline rush... but that wasn't to say she liked hurting people, because at her core, she didn't.

Lara would come to stand in the light after all the attackers had seemingly gone down... She saw the man in black also fall and with her gun still drawn she slowly walked in his direction. The men who were injured but still alive, were making various levels of unpleasant and distracting noises, but Lara was tuning that out.... her focus was on Frank's back, she didn't think he'd been hit by anything... she saw the blood pouring out of Cigar's throat though, which was, unsettling but also nothing exactly new to her. She'd seen a lot of blood in her young life.

Punisher has posed:
    Two is out cold on the ground, but appears to be alive. After Three's weapon and begun clicking empty, he had fallen to his knees almost crying until Lara stepped forward. "Angel of Death...Angel of Death," he keeps muttering as he looks towards the direction that Frank had fallen down with the spin of his jacket.

    Frank curses under his breath at being blindsided like that. His knife had gone flying out of his hand and he is still crouched on the ground, patting around looking for it. He almost senses Lara's behind him. "YOu want to help find that knife or what?" He finally turns his head to look up at Lara. "SHIELD is going for them young these days, huh?" he says before turning back to look at the ground.

    Down the ravine now from where they are, a small flame bursts into life. It seems to be contained in something, but much too far away from either of them to be sure. The light just doesn't carry right to be an open campfire.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eues scanned over the men on the ground, all of them. She kept her gun trained on them and was breathing fairly evenly while the light from her flashlight was making her breath (and theirs) visibly smokey in its steamy form.

Lara spotted the knife first and she put her boot ontop of it to conceal it from Frank's eyes. "SHIELD chooses based on talent and ability." Was her soft rebutal. "You don't need your knife any longer." The Brit said further to him. "The authorities are on their way, they will have medical aide here for those who need it... and then handcuffs for everyone who just attack an agent with no just cause."

The flame igniting in the distance DID catch Lara's eyes, and she glanced at it, but it could be... anything, really, left over halloween stuff. She had more important things to watch over here.

Punisher has posed:
    Frank rises up to his feet and turns to look at Lara. "Never had much use for SHIELD. Just one more police force hampered by its own rules and red tape." He adjusts his jacket and dusts off the dust before looking over towards One, clutching his knees and not moving. OVer to Two. Out Cold from something. Three, babbling like a crazy man. He finally turns towards the fire light in the distance, eyes narrowing. He looks back finally to Lara. "I won't be here when the authorities arrive, Ma'am. You like that explaining things and all. I just like doing."

    The flame suddenly lurches in the distance as if moving higher, but the source is still unseen.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes were primarily on that of Frank now, watching him as he moved and talked at her. She could tell he was a veteran of some kind, police maybe, marine possibly... he had that look about him, that hard and grizzled far-off stare.

"Look." She told him. "You haven't tried to kill me tonight, so I have no apparent issues with you. I work for an agency that is trying to protect the entire planet, its no small ask, I assure you."

Lara couldn't help but glance in the direction of that fire in the distance as it moved some, but she put her eyes back at Frank. "But I could very much use your assistance in corroborating my story with the local law enforcement."

Punisher has posed:
    "I can take that one," Frank says with a gesture toward the dead Cigar, "and get rid of him so you just have to explain the three living ones. This is the one I wanted any way. He is Bakker's Consigliere. He had been hip deep in drugs and underage prostitution." He moves towards teh body of Cigar and reaches down to grip the man's hair. "As for you, got no beef with you, but you don't want to make me talk to the police. Won't end well."

    The light is getting brighter. From around the corner of the ravine, a shadow comes that could be just rocks falling down the wall or perhaps a huge horse with a rider on top. The flame is there now. It looks as if a fire is trapped inside a grinning pumpkin. The shadow rears back or is that just the trees flapping wildly as the wind picks up again. Creaking wood of branches sounds like a high pitched laugh rolling through the ravine now.

    Frank reaches into his pocket for his weapon. "Okay. I am not liking this."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara would watch him move to the body of Cigar and she'd shake her head. "No, you can't... his blood is on the ground. They'll run tests on all the blood sampled here at the crime scene. They'll know a man is missing." She knew she couldn't leave Frank go... She also knew that she WASN'T a cop, not really anyway. She wasn't even an American citizen for that matter.

Lara was about to say something further when that 'thing' appeared/happened and it made her sweep her gun around and take her boot off of his knife on the ground also. She took a step back.

"What, the hell, is that?" She said into the dark, the fire-thing had come close, very close.

"This is an open crime scene. I am an Agent of SHIELD. You need to cease interfering at once!" She shouted into the darkness.

Punisher has posed:
    The wind simply picks up so that is causing Frank's coat to billow out behind him. Tree branches click off each other or are those horse hooves pawing at the earth. The flame light seems to glow brighter, almost pulsing, from that bend in the ravine. The shadow dances back and forth beneath the flaming gourd, but the shadow is wrong for the light source. If there was something under the pumpkin, it would be casting the shadow down onto the ground rather than just be a darker mass in the night. "Who?" it seems to call out to the pair or is that just an owl. The question seems to carry for too long to simply be the bird of prey. "Whooooooooo?" it becomes a howl in the air. Are there wolves in New York again? That sounded too big to be a coyote.

    Frank moves to stand next to Lara, facing whatever that thing is just out of eye focusing distance. "I say we either shoot now or we need to leave." He doesn't sound like he is happy with those options. His eye catches the glint of his knife as Lara's boot moves. He moves to kneel slowly, scooping it up, even as he doesn't let his gaze fall from that shadow.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara heard the howling/hooting and it was wholely unsettling, but she'd seen plenty of wholely unsettling things already before. She shifted her weight on her feet in the soft grass and gripped her gun with both hands. Her flashlight was still stuck in the wall behind them all and she looked over at Frank.

"We can't leave a crime scene, these men... they're in need of medical assistance." She'd tell him before looking back at the... thing.

"Its not real." She told him. "Its a halloween trick. An illusion. Magic perhaps, a child found a spellbook." She'd worked with Doctor Strange, she knew that magic was real and the ability to fake things like this was 'out there'.

Punisher has posed:
    "It could also just be this place," Frank says even as he takes a step back from the appirition. "I know something about cursed earth. This place....feels wrong. Like the jungle felt wrong. Crime scene or now, we are the intruders here, Agent." Frank moves towards Cigar with his K Bar back in his hand. He grips the hair and with surgical prescision, removes the scalp. He tucks that into a cargo pocket on his leg. Glancing back down the ravine, he bends the head back and finishes the slice. The sharp blade cuts the head off and Frank carries it back towards Lara. He pauses for a second and looks at her without almost a slight chuckle and grin. "Here's to your crime scene." He lobs the head down the ravine towards the half shadow, half horseman.

    The laughter begins again echoing through the trees. Mixing with birds suddenly taking off, rustling the branches. Wings beating. The flame begins to dim. It doesn't move backwards as the shadow seems to stay there. Rearing and settling again, but the light fades, and the ravine is beginning to look like a ravine again.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara held her gun at the ready and she turned to watch Frank as he moved. "You can't be serious." She said in that way that only a British woman from London could say. "You believe that that..." She looked over at the ravine. "Thing. Is the... Headless Horseman?" She was breathing heavily still, her breath visible in the light.

Lara watched him with his knife. "What are you doin--" She turned her head and winced and then looked away as he did the rest, she'd seen gore... but that didn't mean she had to enjoy it.

"Jesus, christ." She uttered now, watching him toss the 'offering' to the spirit. As it faded she just shook her head in continued disbelief.

"Nnnooo." She said in a drawn out way. "I can't accept it. This bridge is a tourist trap. There is a -gift shop- not fifty feet from where we -stand-." She'd now say to Frank.

Punisher has posed:
    "Yeah, and when is that gift shop open, Agent?" Frank asks in response. He pulls a cloth out of the jacket and whipes down the knife before slipping into its holster on his chest. "Something happened here. Probably long before Irving ever wrote that story. It probably has taken the shape of the horsemen over the years because of the tourists, but who knows what really happened here." Frank moves to one knee to run his fingers through the dirt. He looks back up and somehow the head is gone. He had seen it land. He saw nothing come and take it, but it is gone now. "If there is any kind of relic here, you better tell your SHIELD friends to keep an eye on it. I will deal with the mob getting ambitious back in the city."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara silently relented to that point from the man, the gift shop had only daily operating hours. She shut out a huff of an exhale that was intermixed with an exasperated laugh and her gun hand came up to press the back of said hand to her forehead. She paced.

Her eyes would come to look at the digging tools that the men had been using. "The relic." She said. Thats why she'd been called here/sent here... summoned, maybe by one of these men or someone they knew at that bar down the street.

Lara turned back to him, toward Frank. "Go on then." She said to him. "I'll deal with whats here." She didn't exactly know how, but she'd handle it--somehow. She'd killed THREE people in an alleyway two nights before Halloween, and now this. SHIELD wasn't an easy job!