November 13, 2014. Mendel, Louisiana

10:30 PM

It’s a cold evening in Mendel, a rare occurrence considering its southern location. It is fifty-eight degrees, and a chilling wind blows through the alleys like the tails of ghosts. The moon hangs high in the sky as restaurants begin to empty and bars begin to fill. The streets are still crowded, but the crowds are beginning to thin as most of the city lights go off. The sky is cloudy, and there is the scent of rain in the air. In some parts of the city, it is beginning to lightly drizzle.

The Vanguard


Whisper looked down over the city from the long, high glass windows of Club 76 and sighed. The city was beginning to wind down for the day, and it looked rather quiet , but all she could see were crimes. Two blocks away from the gargantuan Archimedes building, a man was being mugged, and not far from there, a man with a heavy black trenchcoat was vending his illicit wares to two teenaged boys with their pants resting on their upper thighs. She clenched her fists, and for a moment a thin wispy smoke emanated from them, as if they were about to turn to smoke. She resisted the urge, and turned away from the windows that made up one of the walls of the rectangular restaurant towards the marble-topped bar counter, where a seat was left open. She sat down next to Emilio, who was drinking a Dos Equis and watching a wood-paneled television set into the wall. The World Series was on, and the Royals were losing.

“Dammit Perez.” Emilio mumbled, to no one in particular “You’ve gotta make that throw.” As Whisper took her seat at the bar, the bartender, who was dressed in an Oxford shirt and vest like a waiter, turned back to the bar and got her drink. She came to the bar almost every day, and almost every day she got the same drink. In less than forty-five seconds there was a drink in her hand and a tip in the bartender’s pocket.

Whisper remarked to herself that the bar was rather quiet tonight. Club 76 was a classier place, with nice tables, clean floors, and occasionally live music, but no bar is safe from alcoholics for long. The small stage in the corner was crowded around the edges where spectators listened to a hipster-looking guitarist. He played a black Yamaha, and a white sticker on it read “This Machine Kills Fascists”. As usual, the bar counter was dominated by the Vanguard, some of whom were wearing their jackets and some who were not. There was a new girl at the edge of the counter, the only one dumb or courageous enough to sit in a spot normally reserved for the Vanguard. She was an attractive blonde girl wearing a white sweater and black designer jeans. A beret sat lopsided on her head, and she twirled the straw of her drink disinterestedly with one finger. She looked generally depressed.

Whisper shrugged her shoulders and turned back towards the bar before scanning the other end of the counter; an eighteen-year-old’s angst was not of her concern. Whisper took a drink, and sat the wine glass down on the marble counter gently. She was hungry, but ordering food would require more talking than she was used to. She nudged Emilio in the arm with her elbow and made a beckoning motion with her head towards the bartender. Emilio had grown quite adept at deciphering Whisper’s motions, and so he flagged the bartender down and put in an order of mozzarella sticks. Whisper nodded to his approvingly and he returned the gesture before looking back at the television. The Royals were still losing.

“Dammit.” Emilio growled.

The Skulls



The Jolly Roger is a dive bar that sits on the corner of Radium street and Haber Street. It is a small, dirty place, with floors that look like they were last dusted in 1994 and tables covered in scratches and stains. It is not, generally speaking, a family-friendly establishment. The majority of its inhabitants are tough-musclebound goons clad in leather, many of them Skulls.

Skeleton sat at the bar, a beer in his hand and his eyes fixed on one of the many sports televisions. He was watching a rather brutal UFC match, not even flinching as a grown adult’s lip split open from a punch, spraying blood rather violently across the octagon. The bar at The Jolly Rogers only had four seats, one for each Enforcer of the gang, but tonight it would gain a fifth. Skeleton turned around and looked at Matt; he wasn’t the toughest-looking kid he had ever seen, but Grease loved him to death and advertised him as the next-best thing next to Christ. The bar was alive with sound. Several tables of goons chatted, and the pool table exploded with sound as balls ricocheted all around at missile-like speed. In the corner, a few younger members shared a joint. The place was anarchy, but Skeleton didn’t care. In his mind, it was controlled anarchy, and he loved it.

After admiring his men for a few moments, Skeleton rose and, clearing his throat, silenced the entire bar with minimal effort. As the place fell deathly silent, Skeleton turned to Matt and gestured for him to rise.

“Tonight,brothers,” he began “ we are here to welcome a new member into the Skulls Big Four; Matt Detmer.” Several people began to clap, and some made loud whooping noises with their hands cupped around their lips like megaphones. Skeleton waited for silence, and not receiving it, cleared his throat once more. Everyone shut up almost instantly. Damian rose from his seat between Kylie and Caden and walked over to Matt. He clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“You got any words you wanna say, Matt?” Damian said “Anyone fuckers wanna gloat at or anything like that?” Skeleton huffed semi-audibly and crossed his arms across his chest. Of course Damian would steal the show. Skeleton glared at his old friend and sat back down, allowing him to take over. Skeleton didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

Somewhere on the other side of the city, police cars formed a perimeter around the gory murder of John Frost. From high up above, Tara watched the scene. She was a short, skinny girl with green-and-brown hair, neither color being natural. She sighed loudly as she realized the consequences of this murder, and looked straight down from the top of the apartment building. If Skeleton found out about this, he'd flip out, but not telling him would be worse in the long run. The only thing to do was to deal with his anger and tell him. Tara walked over to the building's rusty fire escape and began to make her way down to the ground. She had to tell Skeleton, whether he liked it or not.

City of Gold Act I: A Death in West Mendel

Nickolas Slater

He had never been one to show up to places like this, but it was a slow night, and he decided to close the shop early and take his Camaro to Club 76 over his Nissan Titan. He wasn't looking to pick up anyone, but he still wanted to look nice among the Vanguard. Whisper always had a knack for classier things. Go figure her definition of classy would also mean a step down from the state Oregon in terms of hipster. It wasn't his scene per say, he was a mechanic, but he figured that many of the Vanguard wouldn't be especially comfortable in the bar. They could make friends out of their mutual distaste.

Or something like that. Hell if he knew.

He stepped out of the elevator, a few coins orbiting around his hand. He wore some simple jeans and black work shoes. He had on a blue and white plaid shirt, and had a light brown leather jacket on. He had decided to wear some of his nicer clothes tonight, as it was a classier place. He wasn't super well known through the skulls, but he was their mechanic and he drove a nice car, and anyone who had seen it had seen him drive it at some point or another. He took a seat next to a girl who looked like she was depressed or something who was stirring her drink. She had taken his seat. Oh well. "Waiter, hit me. Surprise me." he said, reaching into his pocket and placing it on the counter for the waiter to take. As the man came over, Nick cast a sideways glance to the girl next to him. "I haven't seen you around before. Come here often, or are you new?"

---

Matthew 'Prodigy' Detmer

Matt looked up as the bar came to a silent pause, his eyes were trained on Skeleton for now. He had returned from the academy a little while ago, now he was simply readjusting himself to Louisiana again. When Skeleton gestured for him to stand, Matt was surprised, had he done something wrong? He did so, and waited for Skeleton to continue. Instead, Damien stood up and moved over to him. He smiled to his friends as Damien clapped a hand onto his back. "Damn, wasn't expecting this. You all really want to keep me around this time around dont you." he said, shaking his head. "Nah, I dont have anything particular to say, I'm just happy I can beat the shit out of roid rage now and not get in shit for it." Matt said, "Maybe I'll be able to get a date out of it." he said, giving Skeleton a shit eating grin. "Best wingman ever." He was tempted to say something along the lines of 'Drinks on me!', but they were skulls and they didn't pay for shit in this bar as it was. Tonight was his, and he just knew nothing could go wrong.

---

Byte
WIP because I must beat Allen to the first post.

Cassidy Lynn Daniels

Cassidy Lynn walked with a seemingly permanent smirk on her face. Not the sort of arrogant smirk that tended to annoy people. It conveyed no condescension or elitism, but rather, it very quietly and very subtly said that Cassidy Lynn Daniels was in on a joke that was going to leave everybody on the ground when the punchline hit. Her tailor-made purple suit clung to her form quite nicely, and while Cassidy Lynn wasn't the most shapely, by no means falling into anyone's definition of a bombshell, it certainly...

...suited her nicely.

Normally, Cassidy Lynn had her hair styled in such a way that part of it fell over one of her eyes, a little purple highlight cutting across her brown locks and over her right eye. Today, she'd merely opted to let her short-cut hair fall around the back of her head, a little ways down her neck, with a pair of mirrored sunglasses resting lightly upon her face. The playful child's smirk that flashed her pearly whites drew a small bit of attention to the little dueling scar on her left cheek. Nothing major. Nothing serious. Hanging from Cassidy Lynn's white leather belt was an empty sword sheath, which was presumably just there for stylistic purposes. Her well-polished shoes click-clacked across the sidewalk as she moseyed on at her own little pace, and one got the feeling she could tap dance, kick ass, or casually stroll about with equal ease in them.

One got a lot of feelings about Cassidy Lynn-most of them contradicting the others.

Cassidy Lynn didn't feel like engaging any passerbys as she walked down the street, contemplating how she'd spend her night. This, of course, is a rare little insight into Cassidy's psyche that most normally wouldn't get-from her expressions, her mannerisms, you would think Cassidy had rigged her entire life's schedule from the get-go, set up to play out just the way she wanted. The idea that the Fox still wondered about where she was getting dinner each night would've been a bit of a surprise to those who kept up with her persona-which was admittedly a small number of people. Most didn't follow magicians these days as celebrities, but in a few more years, they might. Everybody loves magic tricks.

And if not, hey hey, Cassidy Lynn would just make 'em disappear.

Cassidy Lynn, enjoying to be abreast of current issues (supposing she couldn't be two steps ahead of them) listened softly to the passing conversations around her. A few snippets here and there could usually amount you with something substantive. Usually.

"I swear, man, I was just fuckin' going over to look at the thing and the car doors swing open and knock my ass down! Nobody was in the damn thing! Must've-"

"Yeah. Blood all over the damn place. Ever since their kind started comin' in Mendel, we've just had-"

"I dunno, but Skeleton is gonna lose his SHIT when he hears-"

Oooh. Murders. Grisly. Cassidy Lynn supposed it was that cute little Whisper, yes she was the killer. It was her in the dining room with the candlestick. Whistling some old showtune to herself, Cassidy Lynn turned the corner, figuring she could take a bit of a shortcut and get to the Club 76 a little faster. They had decent food. Of course, the clientele was usually a little annoying-see, people who mark themselves as good guys, more often than not, tend to mark you as a bad guy if you don't fall in with their ranks. Cassidy Lynn didn't really fall squarely into either camp. What do you call somebody who's just in it for the hell of it? Cassidy Lynn Daniels. That's what you call them.

Cassidy turned the corner and came to a slow, controlled stop. One of the more minor effects of her supreme reflexes was that Cassidy Lynn was never caught off-guard. Sure, she might've been surprised as hell inside, but she had the control to recover from her shock at such a level it didn't even look like she was. A trench-coated man and two teenagers were just passing one another a bag of ice when she turned around. Cassidy Lynn's eyes, masked behind her shades, blurred between the three. Trench coated man. Suit's got tiny little bulges in it. He's hiding a lot under there. Tattoos barely peeking out from underneath. Probably gang-affiliations. Kids are wearing pants that are way too baggy. Can't catch up to me if I run normally, but these shoes aren't good for running. And the trench coat's got a piece tucked in his belt.

"Get lost," the trench coat snarled, recovering more quickly than the two teens that were glancing around at each other with wide-eyed surprise and confusion. What, was this their first show? "You feel like telling anybody what you saw, you're not gonna feel anything below the neck."

A faux pout masked Cassidy Lynn's face. "This would be a shame. But I'm afraid I need to get past you. I've got a date."

There was a moment of stunned "is this bitch that fucking stupid" on the three of their faces, and the trench coat started to inch his hand towards his piece, trying to assess whether Cassidy was the least subtle undercover cop of all time or just a hopelessly stupid bystander.

Not stupid. Crazy. Crazy like a fox.

The moment his fingers curled around the butt of the revolver, Cassidy let her right hand fall to her side, half a deck of cards slipping out of the suit (and, curiously, the suit seemed tailored rather too tightly for a deck of cards to be hidden up in here, so how had she...) and into her open palm. This sped up the trench coat's draw, and he had the barrel of the gun just barely clear from the front of his pants when Cassidy Lynn made her move.

In about half a second, there had been a gunshot and all three of them were on the ground. A small pool of blood was soaking through the front of the gunman's pants-he had made the very grave mistake of keeping his finger on the trigger while drawing the gun. The others were clutching their eyes, and may need to borrow some of their mothers' makeup to hide the bruises by tomorrow morning. Cassidy calmly walked over and rolled the screaming trench coat over with her foot, very careful not to get any blood on her. Blood. Ick. She tugged the trench coat off of him-the man offered no resistance, rather preferring to curl in the fetal position and comfort himself with denial. Cassidy dragged the trench coat along with her for a minute or two, the drug-lined pockets bulging for a moment or two. When she'd turned the corner, the trench coat was gone, as were the playing cards, and Cassidy Lynn continued on her way to the Club 76. her trembling fingers the only betrayal of how much damned adrenaline was running through her body.

She could put on a good show if nothing else. Cassidy Lynn calmly strode into the bar and took a seat in the corner, alone from everyone else. The Vanguard wasn't really her crowd. She figured they'd clear out soon-if they cared about the gunshot outside, for one, and if whatever was going to piss Big Bad Skeleton off was their doing, she figured a little gang war might be on the horizon. Cassidy Lynn wanted to be somewhere nice and high like the 76 so she could have a great view of all the fireworks going off.

Cassidy took off her sunglasses, folded them up and placed them across the table from her, and leaned back into her seat, one leg folded over the other. Waiting for a server to come by was no problem at all. She could always play solitaire or something if she got really, really bored.

May

Coming soon

Johnny Kin Valos.



Just another day in the life of Greed and Godhood.

Everything felt eh to Johnny. The Vanguard was gathered in another forced meeting. Like Johnny didn't really care for playing around with the other members of this faction, if you could call it that. He only wanted to reap the rewards of this group. Because if there weren't any, he would certainly be the first to leave. It was a simple rule of nature. Stick with a large pack of wolves and you get a slice of their meals. Mendel was a shithole, and it was only a matter of time until the Skulls come to stir trouble. So why not stick with the Vanguard and have some fun cracking some Skulls? Get it? Skulls? Though the scene in this dingy-ass bar, with nothing to do but watch some stupid-ass sport, was boring the hell out of him. Like, didn't Ms. Whisper what the fuck a high class bar is? Of course not. If she did; they wouldn't be here.

Sitting in this uncomfortable bar seat, Johnny started playing with that fancy brown duster he's always seen wearing. With gold studs, zippers, and cufflinks. He was just zipping it up and down. Like some child. He had on brown dress pants, with black dress pants. Wearing the same matching brown fedora with a black band and Star-shaped sunglasses. Swinging off his neck was a gold chain. A fresh to death attire for a fresh to death man. For a moment, Johnny considered doing something to liven this place up a little. Johnny lives for excitement! Not sitting on his ass.... Johnny's eyes peered down this row of seats and saw some hot blonde bitch sitting in a spot reserved for the Vanguard. Normally, Johnny would be more than glad to beat some sense into this girl, but she was attractive. He was looking for some excitement...

Johnny shot Taylor a playful smirk as he stood straight up out of the chair. He grabbed his cane which was leaning up against the car, with BLOODSHED engraved into the side. This girl better hope she doesn't see the bloodshed. "Hello there, sweetheart..." Johnny shot her a smirk as he sat down. However, some other tool decided that he would try to chat her up. What the hell was his name? Nick Slater... The resident Magneto wanna-be. The mechanic. Obviously not worth his time. Johnny had to roll his eyes. "'Come here often'?" Johnny tilted his glasses as he spoke to Nick, "Maaaan, I would teach yo' ass some better pick up lines, but I think the only thing you'll come close to fucking is a muffler." Johnny shot him a cocky smirk as he began chuckling. "So mind steppin' aside? I got actually important business to attend to."

Caden Isiah Zorich.

My, my, my... What a gathering of Skulls. Caden sat in his chair with his arms crossed. The Shadow-Child enjoyed sharing his seat with the rest of the Big Four - Or should he call them the Big Five now that young Matthew had been inducted. The Skulls didn't like him. They said he was creepy, strange, and how they should just end it all here! But they all live in fear of his power. Even Skeleton. Only person they would fear most would be Matthew. Caden can see it, Matthew becoming the head of the Skulls. He is easily the strongest Skull. But the one true leader of the Skulls should be Caden... He would make them the one true faction of Meta-human, comprised of Meta-humans of all origins. That will shed all useless titles of being a worthless gang, and rise to something greater.  

An ideal.

But, oh boy, Caden didn't want to get ahead of himself here. His position in the Skulls was satisfactory for now. He would need to gain some influence before he attempts anything rash as a coup. Which could end badly for him if he gets a little too hasty. Caden remained seated. He would have some words with Matthew when mama-bear Kylie isn't looking. He knew her looks, he knew she despised him.

Reiko Silas Ain.

A bunch of fools. Reiko sneered at the thought of participating in the mess they called a bar. She was classier than that, at least she didn't act like an untrained animal. Which is why she choose a booth far away from the fools, wearing a black cocktail dress and some long boots, drinking some fine wine she herself had saved for such an occasion. Celebrating the ascension of Matthew Detmer herself. A lonely way to celebrate, but Reiko never related to these savages. There were few that she thought of being better than the rest of them, and Kylie and Matt had the pleasure of being them. Matthew had an incredible power... One that could easily trump Reiko's. If they were to fight, Reiko could only hope to ambush him. However, they have no reason to fight. Which is something that she appreciated. She planned on congratulating the child later - Despite his ascension, he still had some ways to go. Which is something Reiko had over him: experience. For now, she was going to stay in this lonely booth until she had other business to attend to.

Vanessa Katherine Kalford.

"Listen, guys, you don't-" Vanessa pleaded in vain.

"Shut the fuck up!" A man, who just so happened to have a knife pressed to her throat, shouted. He was one of three men - Each wielding their own weapons (A pipe and a wooden bat). Each of them looked like hardcore meth-heads who were desperate for another hit. Which is why they're here. "We told you to drop your clothes and give us all you got. Not talk."  

Not going to happen.

It may look like Vanessa made the wrong decision going down this dark alley, making herself look like an easy target, but this is honestly what she wanted. It looked like she was helpless, holding her hands into the air, but she was in control here. Everything but the outermost layers of skin was comprised of cold iron. That knife wasn't going to do anything but scratch her. It looked like there was no choice here. Vanessa turned the area where the knife was pressed against her into iron, and absorbed the very tip of the knife into her body. He wouldn't notice since she had the exact area turned into metal - it pressing against her helps. Officially, it's her knife now. Nothing would allow him to take it back. The man quickly realized that he wasn't the one holding the knife. He tried pulling it away futilely. Which was all apart of the surprise. Vanessa released the knife, and the man was caught off guard. Vanessa quickly put all she could into one solid punch to the man's jaw. Needless to say, the man went down in one blow. He was sent sprawling backwards and landed on his back with what had to be a broken jaw. Maybe she should have put less force behind that one.... She quickly went into a boxing stance. The southpaw stance. Her right arm and leg in front, with enough distance between her left leg. She was ready to take the other two down.

The other two thugs were honestly surprised that she was able to turn the tables so easily, but they weren't going to give up just yet. The man with the bat rushed Vanessa with the bat poised to swing to her side. However, Vanessa grabbed the bat with an iron grip, and used it to throw the mugger off balance by swinging it aside. Taking advantage of the man's opening, she delivered a iron-punch to the man's side. Which had knocked the wind out of him, and sent him tumbling over. Which was followed by a solid stomp to his hand. Absolutely shattering it. She felt his bones crush underneath her feet... It it looked like it hurt! The screaming made it sound like it too.

Vanessa stepped off the man's foot, and turned towards the last of her aggressors. He dropped the pipe he was holding and took off running out of the alleyway like he's seen a coach. The implications were obvious. He didn't want none of Vanessa.

She let out a casual sigh and jogged out of the alleyway, tossing her grey hood over her head. She didn't know if this guy was coming back with help, nor did she want to be around to find out. She reverted her body back to flesh and bones opposed to metals. She didn't need to anymore. Jesus. She needs to stop doing this. Her thrill-seeking nature would not end well. For her, or anyone else. Vanessa let out a sigh as she slid her hands into her pockets and began marching back to her apartment. Hoping that this would be her fix of excitement for today.

Kylie “Grease” Evans

The night had barely even started and Grease already had a drink in her hand. Everyone knows that there are several different types of drunks. And anyone who knows Grease is that once she gets past a point the world is suddenly sunshine and rainbows. And she liked it that way. In the rare moments when she is completely sober she might not give an underling the time of day, always wearing a disconcerting frown on her face. But once she has downed a few drinks her entire composure changes and suddenly she is giving even the entry level, pawn Skulls, pats on the back and kisses on the cheeks.

Grease was currently sprawled out on a dusty old sofa, a light trail of smoke drifting up from the lit end of a cigarette perched at the end of her lips. She rummaged through the pockets on her jacket, fiddling with the laces on her shoes with her free hand, until she pulled out the objects of her desire. It was some of the things she found herself always carrying. A small, pocket sized, mirror, a metallic comb and a tin of some of the nicest hair grease the town had for her to steal. She literally stockpiled the stuff, it was a signature part of her look. It was also obviously how she got her nickname, Grease.

She took the spent cigarette that was still hanging from the corner of her lips and snuffed it out on the wooden card table that was next to her. That was one of the great things about being one of the head honchos of the Skulls. She got respect, and she could smoke indoors. That was really all the girl wanted.

Leaning the mirror up against her foot, Grease got back to the more important matters at hand. Her hair was getting flat. She flicked open the tin with a satisfying clink, globing a generous amount of gel onto the teeth of her comb and brushing it through her unnaturally colored hair, being mindful of her earrings. After a couple passes through, her hair was back into it's bumped up pompadour, and damn did it look good. With a content grin, Grease scraped the remaining grease off of the teeth of the comb and back into the tin, not wanting to waste, and then returned the three objects back into her pockets. Now that her hair emergency was fixed, she took out a fresh cigarette and lit it.

Grease then heard Skeleton clear his throat and lazily sat up. She normally didn't pay much attention to his announcements. They were often awkward and lacked any sort of personality or MLA citation. But today she would listen, because she knew exactly what was happening. Her little brother was being promoted to a Big. Grease would admit that a lot of it was her influence, she did happen to be one of the founders of the gang, but Matt was also crazy strong. Grease began to hoot and holler for him, along side many of the other members cheering for him.

She also happened to be the last members of the gang, drunkenly cheering, when Skeleton again called for silence. She launched herself out of her seat, her cigarette falling to the filthy wooden floor. She reminded herself to pick it up later as she grabbed her glass of colorful alcohol. She moved to the other side of Matt. She patted her little brother on the back, mimicking what Damian had done.

“Ya do your sister proud Matty! But I say no dating 'till you're married!”

Grease spoke with a huge grin on her face, her breath smelling heavily of smoke and alcohol. Life was good.

Abigail "Rabbit" O'Reilly



Rabbit wasn't fond of stereotypes, nor did she want to nurture them in others with her own actions. However, she would acknowledge that she was as much of a drunkard as any Irish when given the chance. Years of training back in Ireland had given her a higher resistance to alcohol than most, but then she'd also drink more than most. It was the norm to socialize while drunk where she came from, but here it seemed to be a thing for the glum and depressed. She gestured for the bartender to give her another straight whiskey with ice, when he did so she picked the glass up and stared at the contents for a few seconds. She didn’t think he’d put anything in his drinks so far, but maybe someone else had. She tasted it with her tongue, and when she found that it tasted like it should she drank what was in the glass, then shook her head and put it back down with a cling.

Some of the other members of the Vanguard were seated at the same bar counter as her. Most of the men in the gang were mainly interested in getting with the women, at least that’s what it seemed like to her, but she’d managed to keep them at bay by being herself. It couldn’t be easy to flirt with someone who would stare at you, examining every comment you made as if you were a complete jackass. She didn’t think they were all a bunch of jackasses, but she did doubt their intentions when it came to her. Did they only want to screw or was there something more sinister there? She couldn’t know unless she let her guard then, and she wouldn’t do that easily in some bar.

Rabbit noticed that one of the guys who had begun fighting over some girl with another guy wore star-shaped sunglasses like she did. It made her smirk. Maybe she should try to find rabbit-shaped sunglasses as well? Who else could possibly wear something like that? She had her belt and her tattoos though. Perhaps anything else would be overdoing it.

There were quite a number of Vanguards gathered here tonight. Their leader was there as well. Maybe they’d all decided on something while she’d come here for the simple pleasure of whiskey. Maybe she’d drunk so much that she’d forgotten her original purpose for being here. She thought she’d only had a few shots so far, like three or four. Rabbit would have tried to gather more information on the people she didn’t know that well yet, had they met somewhere else, but she doubted she would wake up tomorrow with a perfect memory. She needed to take more notes to improve her plans for when one of them betrayed her. It was also a good way to get to know her fellow Vanguards better, but that felt like a secondary task.

“The music here sucks.” She mumbled to herself, probably way too loud though as she could feel glances in her direction. It was true though, to her silence would have been preferred over this, but silence would also allow her to listen in on others conversations. Rabbit ordered another straight whiskey, didn’t check the glass this time, drank and laughed.

Whisper

Whisper took a bite of a mozzarella stick, the cheese stretching the gap between her mouth and the stick, and chewed slowly. She took a second bite to remove the cheese strand and prevent herself from looking foolish and then stood up with a glass of wine in her hand. She walked across the room, past several tables and towards the window, where once more she almost habitually stared down at the city. There were police cars high-tailing it down a street by the river; that couldn't be good. Judging by the number of cars, meta-on-meta violence was most likely the cause. She hoped that her men weren't involved. The last thing Whisper needed was pissed off cops. She was just about to turn around when she caught sight of the loudly-dressed Cassidy Lynn. The woman looked rather familiar. Whisper sat still for a moment, looking at the ground halfway between the window and Cassidy, and then decided to turn back to the bar. It was not in Whisper's nature to be social, and this girl looked slightly arrogant.

She pulled out her phone and sent a text to Samson Jeross;

"Police cars on Clyde St. 3 sirens. Might be meta. Check it out."

Emilio

When Whisper left her seat, Emilio's first reaction was to steal a mozzarella stick. He ate it rather ravenously, the cheese sticking to the roof of his mouth (which is a serious problem for Mamba). He scarfed it down with a swig of beer, and then looked to his left where Rabbit was sitting, half-drunk. He looked back at the tv screen as the Giants scored another run, and cursed quietly. Emilio certainly wouldn't turn down a chance to mess with a drunk person, and so he turned to his left and responded to her mumbling.

"I kind of like it." Emilio said "It's calm without being smooth jazz."

Taylor

Halfway through formulating an english response to Nick (it took her a bit more time than average to formulate english sentences), she was cut off by Johnny. She frowned at him; he was obviously rather snobbish, and the cane was far too gaudy. He looked like a pimp that had gone through a meat grinder. The attention she was receiving now was more than enough to pick up her spirits. She smiled, a slim curving of her red lips in the upward direction, and drummed her fingers on the edge of her martini seductively. She sized Johnny up for a moment, and then blinked a few times; what, did he raid a party store?

"Un peu grossie," she muttered to herself before turning to Nick "No, I've never really been much for drinking, but I" she hesitated, considering how much information she should tell a random stranger at a bar. She had yet to take a single drink of her fruity martini, and so alcohol wasn't an excuse. She weighed her options quietly, and ended the sentence by saying "heard about this place from a friend. It's rather underwhelming, no?" This place was becoming rather stale quickly. Unlike most bars, there wasn't much to really do at Club 76 besides drink fancy drinks that cost too much and revel in how rich you are that you can afford said fancy drinks.

Titus MacArthur

Lumbering down Archimedes Street was Titus MacArthur, a mountain of a man with Scottish hair and a Scottish disposition. He walked with his chest puffed out and his shoulder's back, making him look even bigger than he already was, and people moved out of his way when they saw him, easily cleaving a path through the crowd. He was in this part of town on an errand for Damian, and was hopelessly lost; there was no Fukerzelf road anywhere around here, nor was there a smoke shop where you could buy a penis-shaped glass bong. The bong, he was explained, was meant to be a prank for Matt, who was becoming a Skull enforcer, though, considering Matt didn't smoke, Titus found this rather odd. Nearby, Titus overheard two men talking.

"Yeah. Blood all over the damn place. Ever since their kind started comin' in Mendel, we've just had-"

"I dunno, but Skeleton is gonna lose his SHIT when he hears about this one."

"Was the guy a big deal?"

"Do I look like I hang around fuckin' gangsters? All I know is that the guy was apparently a Skull."

Titus' eyes widened. A Skull had been murdered. Maybe if he ran and told Skeleton, he thought, he would get a promotion. He quickly turned the corner, bumping one of the two men and sending them sprawling, and was about to enter an alley when he saw a woman in a purple suit having a standoff with a drug dealer at the end of the alley. In one fluid motion, the guy was on the ground, and she left quickly. Titus ran after her, not wanting to get caught by the police for the gunshot, and he shoved one of the kids into a brick wall. The brick cracked, or maybe that was the kid's bones, and he slumped to the ground. Once he reached the street, Titus attempted to blend back in, and followed the girl in the purple suit to where she entered the Archimedes building. He was interested; she certainly looked like a formidable fighter, and if a meta was good at fighting in West Mendel, then they were probably a Vanguard. While it would be great to be the first to tell Skeleton about the murder, it would be better to catch the murderer as well. Titus expected a Vanguard to be the killer; that only made sense. He entered the elevator and rode to the top floor, not interacting with Cassidy in the slightest. From his gargantuan height, she looked quite small next to him.

The elevator doors opened and Titus walked the opposite way as Cassidy to throw her off his trail. Once he sufficiently got out of her line of sight, Titus doubled back and followed her to a bar. He stood outside and looked in at the people inside. Lo and behold, there was Whisper Kiyoshi, drinking some sort of mixed drink and staring down at the city below her. Titus' heart leapt; just wait until the boss heard about this.

Jenna James Bartlett
Club 76

---

'Club 76' was a fancy-schmancy upper-class place, no doubt about that. Drinks to die for, a view to kill for, and a whole room full of gang members from The Vanguard. Surveying the room as her fingers stroked the glass (thankfully devoid of any attached traumatic memories), Jenna James Bartlett wondered if she was the only one there who was just... normal, for a meta-human at least. There were probably people nearby who could crush her head like a walnut in the seconds it would take her to say, 'Wait, I'm a friend.'

Then again, she was born and raised in East Mendel. Maybe being born with a silver spoon in your mouth made you automatically a more moral person than The Skulls? Less violent? Whatever. She wouldn't stop painting them with the same brutal brush unless she saw proof otherwise. Sugar skulls and crossed keys were little more than different sides of a single coin.

Taking another sip from her drink, Jenna James was once gain struck by how out of place she felt in the club – not just in terms of gangs and civilians but rather in wealth. It all came down to that, didn't it? She felt that her blouse and skirt combo was too tame. She felt that her hoop earrings (larger than her hand!) were too poor. Her table in the shadowed corner of the room, almost too far away from the music to take any enjoyment from it, was a table of poverty. It exuded a, 'Oh god, don't go near there,' vibe.

When her phone started buzzing, a welcome distraction from the waves of bitterness pouring out of her, she quickly dug it out of her handbag. Caller I.D? Malcolm. The very man of her dreams who just so happened to suggest she take a night off from their 'work' and conveniently go to a particular establishment where The Vanguard were. "Y'llo?" she greeted. "What's up, hun?"

The other end of the line crackled with the rustling of a cold wind. "Just... aah... checking in... Havin' a good time so far?" Malcolm sounded distinctly out of breath as if he'd been running or labouring for hours outside; however, physical work just didn't seem like her boyfriend's forte.

Jenna James rolled her eyes, vision obscured for just a split second with her long fake eyelashes. It brought a slightly more confident smile to her face. "Oh, absolutely. I've been partying aaaaall this time. The music is–" she peered up at the live guitarist disinterestedly, "–splendid and the company even more so." She knew her sarcastic drawl was so thick it couldn't be cut with a bloody samurai sword, but it prompted a static-muffled chuckle from Malcolm.

"Yeah, I figured... So long as you pass her the business card, it's all good..." Malcolm's speech was punctuated with the unmistakable sound of a shovel digging into loose dirt. "I got some goodies for you to read once you get back– you are coming to my place after, right?"

"'Course," she said, as if it was a stupid question. The psychometrer sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Though, Mal, I swear to God, if you're out there gravedigging all by yourself because you thought I'd be squeamish, I can and will post embarrassing things on each and every form of social media you use." The volume in her voice rose slightly, out of exasperation more than irritation, but she reined it back in. "Is it at least something good?"

"I have the bashed in skull of our victim and a plastic flower right here for you, darlin'. Wounds are post-mortem and post-burial, 'cause there's nothing like them in the police report," he said proudly. Jenna James could imagine him spinning the skull around in his hands like a football and then she felt a spike of anticipation of all things. If she worked her magic on those, she'd more than likely get a memory straight from the head of the mysterious murderer– and those were juicy. Of course her boyfriend had to continue with, "But to touch it you need to do the Thing I talked to you about. Get us in with The Vanguard, 'kay? Love you!"

Click. Jenna James rubbed at her forehead. She couldn't just walk up to Whisper as she was staring out at the city; she was sure that there would be some sort of rule to get her kicked out for that. Maybe the other one would be better, the athletic man – Hispanic, maybe Mexican – who deferred to her. Picking up the business card on the table, black-on-white text looking distinctly unprofessional, she re-read it:

Precog & Psychometry
Meta-Human Private Investigators
On the other side was Malcolm's phone number, acting as their business front for the time being. It could only be worse if it was written in goddamn Comic Sans. Jenna James rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, pulled on her gloves – God only knew what sort of memories she could pick up from The Vanguard's members – and timidly wandered over to the bar where the Hispanic man (whose nickname she swore was something about a snake) sat. "Uh... sorry to bother you but... could you pass this on to Whisper? I didn't want to bother her and you look like you're friends and... Just if you could tell her our services are available if she ever wants or needs them...."

She reached over and slipped the card onto the bar, shifting nervously from side to side and feeling particularly mouse-like.

Baron Moreau

Blood – it was everywhere. Splatted all over the walls, the floor, with bits of gore and what only looked to be gnawed-on fragments of bone in some corners where the first responders has failed to investigate properly. Baron walked around the scene, pacing, taking all of it in. He had already scouted the surrounding area. The pool of blood was clearly the scene in which the death had occurred, but there was a chase. A struggle. In the ally, outside of which the murder had occurred, a trail of blood led the scene. Some on a dumpster. There were abnormal cracks within the brick walls. The kind of damage you only see in the north, where water seeped between the small cracks in the wall and froze, splitting it. They were all over this ally but scarce everywhere else. This part of town wasn't that old - and the murder scene seemed like the guy was put in a shredder.

There was also claw marks in the pavement. Forensic investigations found residue in the claw marks and collected it. The blood was sampled with cue tips and cotton swabs and placed in baggies. However, this murder was so fresh, even the first responders were still doing the jobs. It couldn't have been any longer than twenty minutes ago. Closer to fifteen. Three sirens flashes around the taped off scene.

The event had occurred between two meta-humans. Meta-humans were part of the reason Baron had first come to this town instead of New Orleans. The psychological insight would be invaluable. But when he arrived, he learned that the meta-humans here had actually formed two distinct, but equally dangerous street gangs that'd make the LA Bloods look like children on a playground. If Baron's hunch was right, an inter-gang altercation was the most reasonable explanation. Turf wars and so on.

“P.I.?” Asked a detective assessing the scene. It was to see if they could discover any oversights in the initial survey. “I understand that we've hired you to help us, and that you do things your own way, but we still need you to cooperate with our department.”

“Of course.” Baron replied absentmindedly. He walked over to his protégé's side, his left leg limping behind him. He was adorned in a chic outfit. From the bottom up, polished black dress shoes with dress pants. Black suspenders attached themselves to the waistband and wrapped around his lime-green oxford shirt, layered upon which was a black vest. It was an ironed outfit, free of wrinkles, and his hair was slickly gelled back as per the usual.

He took a final look at the scene before giving his assessment. “This was a chase. He must've been running for a while. He must've been followed. And I think it'd be most reasonable to suspect that this is gang activity. I found blood on the dumpster in the back of the alley. That should be a good place to check for prints.”

The detective sighed. “Got that. We'll send the forensics team over and get that sorted out. Thank you for your help.”

“It's my pleasure.” Baron added graciously.

The detective turned about and watched the scene: from forensic analysts gathering evidence and the police inspecting the area, and the remains of the body being zipped up in a body bag. “I can tell you we know that he was a Skull member. Moderately reputable, got into trouble kinda frequently. Judging from the structural damage, and the drop in temperature in the area, I have a hunch he was that John Frost thug.”

“Then it'd make sense that this was an action taken by the Vanguards.”

“Yes, it would. But the evidence we received isn't conclusive enough to give us a face, or even a name. Quite frankly, it pisses me off.”

Baron laughed jovially. “ I can imagine. And there's a lot of evidence here, yeah. Blood all over the damn place. Ever since their kind started comin' in Mendel, we've just had–”

“I dunno,” he interrupted, prompting an annoyed frown from Baron, “but Skeleton is gonna lose his shit when he hears about this one.”

“Was he a big deal?” Baron asked.

“Do I look like I hang around fuckin' gangsters? All I know is that the guy was apparently a Skull.”

“Fine, fine. Let's call it a day then. I'll ask around in the meantime. Maybe something has happened between the two parties to invite bad blood.”

“Heard that – I'll keep in touch with you.”

Baron nodded his acquaintance off and walked away on his own. There was a bar nearby. He wasn't much of a fan of bars. They did not often sell the kind of vintage that Baron was a fan of, and the atmospheres were often too rustic. However, they were the gathering places of the local savvies. There he can obtain information on his case. It wasn't Club 76 or the Jolly Roger – those two places were renowned for being the hubs of gang activity. The only reason why the department didn't storm in and fire the place up was probably the risk of losing too many officers.

No, this was a lesser known bar. More suited for those who wanted to get away from all that nonsense. To keep low. To avoid association. What better place to obtain information?

He took the bus. He payed the fare and rode it out, making sure to give people his especially suspicious face – like a smug grin, and piercing gaze. Give them the impression that Baron was watching them, or that they were his target, so that he may be alone in his seat. It was surprisingly easy. Just how tight was the grip of these gangs on this town? Perhaps solving a murder or two wasn't all that needed to be done. If he was feeling especially spry, then he ought to contemplating dismantling all criminal power here.

But that'd require effort he wasn't being payed to spend.

When he got to his stop, no time was wasted in going in and getting straight to business. He walked straight the door, and checked out what was inside. The bar was slightly dead. A couple people here and there. Almost all keeping to themselves. Lack of trust, or suspicion? Or, perhaps looking to solve out their own problems. The guy in the gray business suit? A rectangular lump in his pants, and a similar, almost identical shape in his coat pocket over his breast. The top of which stuck out, it being a phone. His brown hair, scruffy, his face unshaven. His suit, that which appeared to be regularly ironed, was unkempt. Tugged in areas. Sweat soaked in the pants and below his neck. Constantly checking his phone in his coat. What could be the reasons? Put himself in his shoes, and the answers narrow down. Huge promotion? Possibly getting fired? Feedback on a project? Or maybe he cheated on his wife or girlfriend? The smallest red speck that could be mistaken for blood on the edge of his mouth – which did gloss under the light. All one could really do is wish him the best of luck.

Or perhaps the other man, alone on a barstool. Salt and pepper hair, red skin – not so red, or the kind of red that'd be the sign of a southern man, it was a signifier of damaged skin. Thin wrinkles crawled over his body... scruffy facial hair... city-man attire... eh? No, no... maybe? Couldn't be. Or could it? Baron was, at heart, a doctor and scientist. He couldn't make exceptions. Still, God be damned if it was his old co-worker. He limped over, quietly, casually. He eased over by this stranger's side and leaned against the counter.

“So,” Baron started saying, “anything been interesting lately? Like that murder down the way. What's up with that any-who?”

- - - - - - - - - -

Mia Jones

Old, rough, plastic bristles sopped with foaming mint toothpaste, guided back and forth by a hand through a row of white, scratched teeth. Teeth, in which the enamel was nearly scrubbed off by the vigor of the stained bristles. They found their way between the crevices and the nooks and the crannies, between the first molar and second molar, and the first molar and the canine, and then the lateral and central incisors. Moving on to the other half of the mouth, the process of repeated. But it was less a process so much as it was a cycle, for a process has an end in sight. As opposed to stopping and rinsing, the brush never stopped moving. It insisted, repeating each portion of the mouth over and over. Her hand didn't wear. It continued to move in the same, loose, rhythmic pattern and did not deter, guiding the brush. With each passing movement, the bristles would brush up against the pink, irritated gums. Each pass, each notion, it brought the gums to a bleed. As the red substance found it's way down and dripped upon the woman's tongue, the brushing stopped. It stopped, but remained dormant in her mouth – that is to say, the brush. Only after a few moments was it removed and rinsed under a leaky faucet. It was followed by a pair of hands, feeling for the cold stream of water, and cupping the hands when it was found. The water was lifted and sucked up by her mouth, swished around, and spat out.

Mia would never find out what the disgusting mixture of water and toothpaste and blood looked like. She might not actually want to, but she long sought relief from the black veil. Be it a blood stained glob of toothpaste foam or the face of a law enforcement officer or a bouquet of flowers, she didn't care. It's been a long six months. The longest six months she has ever had, and she felt herself forgetting what it was like to see. She dared not pity herself though. She brought it upon herself, so she had to live with the consequences. But it sure must be wonderful seeing the world as it was meant to be... or at least outside of East Mendel. She had faint memories of this part of this city, none far too pretty. If East Mendel looked anything like how it smelled, perhaps being blind wasn't such a bad thing after all. Mia cupped her hands under the tap once more and splashed the cool water against her sticky face, and dried it with a warm hand towel, then promptly discarded it in the plastic bin below the counter.

So it was that day. A Monday, right? Keeping track of days was harder than it used to be, not being able to look at paper or digital calendars. Anything beyond keeping track of the days in her mind or asking pedestrians was out of her reach, and she wasn't prone to talking to others. No, she'd rather go about her daily life by herself with no one around to bug her. To give her time to pan out what to do with herself and her life. She did, to some extent. A rash decision, really, she knew that. The MCPD was a paranoid organization, and the gangs were as strong as military powers at this point. And the police department was sanctioned by the government itself, but they crossed so many lines. This was the day that she intended to officially set herself against them and the rest of the world, even if that meant her eventual death. She was blind in a city full of violent meta-humans, scared people, and an extremist police-force. Death was a foregone conclusion, so to her, it was more a matter of knowing where your allegiances lie before that inevitable outcome. But that thought troubled her. There was no allegiance to be had with anybody. She wasn't devoted to the Skulls, she wasn't invested in the Vanguards, her only allegiance was to herself – and that should be enough. But a meta-human or not, a blind woman can't get anything done by herself.

The whole damn world had to pay for all the shit it put on her! That was for certain. The Vanguard wouldn't be able to help her do that, being preoccupied in sucking their own collective dicks. The Skulls were their primary enemy, but hanging about a bunch of layabouts of psychopathic meta-humans put her in almost as much risk as walking into a pit of starving dogs. The idiocy of the Skulls' members aside, she could at least find the strength to tolerate them and keep them out of her way while utilizing their resources to hit the city hard. The only problem she could see – an ironic phrase in Mia's circumstance – was their willingness to let a blind woman in. Sure, she could punch her way in, but they still might see her as a liability. She can't have that. She isn't a liability! But who would listen to a desperate blind woman?

She made a rueful sigh as she slowly and carefully stepped down the staircase, her hand firmly on the rail. She felt a jagged edge and then a gap with no railing. Oh, this. Something should be done about this. She inched her way towards the wall on her left and use that to lean and feel against as she went down. There was a time that she lost her foot at the edge of one of the steps. Being the woman with super strength, the railing didn't really keep her from falling. More like it was ripped from where it was built and fell with Mia. She was lucky that no harm was done – except for the railing. It still sat outside near the door, probably damaged by termites or waterlogged or something. At reaching the bottom, she felt for her cane, which was near the door. She didn't bother to eat breakfast. Her appetite has never really been the same since Roy's death.

She took her hand and combed it through her short hair. It was black, the last she recalled. It had to have been. Most African Americans had black hair. Her hair was silky though, provided by Egyptian and Arabian genes. She had a pretty curious lineage. Mia once had grandparents. They told stories about their grandparents' grandparents – obviously a pretty old story – and how they were nomadic. From Arabia, to Egypt, and to Sudan, where the lineage stagnated a little bit before being captured by white colonials. A lot of people this generation, whom were the children of those during the third-wave social rights movement were taught such things and so did they to the next person for generations! Treat them as they did us! But Mia never did pay it much mind then, figuring it happened generations ago. The unequal treatment of individuals so many years ago did not justify revenge against the demographic of today. Just as Germany today isn't responsible for the actions of Nazi Germany nine decades ago. But these sort of political ideologies didn't concern Mia so much anymore. As active as she was in her ideologies years ago, or even seven months ago, her interest in such things diminished. There was inequality everywhere, she thought. And inequality is indiscriminate. It comes in the form of fortune to some and misfortune to others. It's only discriminate when deliberately perpetuated by men and women through action.

It was about time that Mia took action, herself. No more waiting around. No more crying. She was alone. That had to be accepted. She was strong. That had to be believed. She had the conviction to fight back, it was just the matter of summoning the strength to follow through. Her ears perk at the faintest sound of a high-pitched squeal. It was approaching West Mendel, but not towards her house. They were sirens. A couple of them. A semblance of a smile plastered her face. So, the Skulls and Vanguard were finally going at it – and in West Mendel, too. It must be quite a surprise to those Vanguard folk, having people barge down their front door like that. How offset must they be? How afraid are their members what with the department being more involved in their hijinks? The Skulls have to make a stand, she knew they know this. They're going to need brave family members. Brave family members or fools, or anyone desperate enough to get by or throw a punch at a super-powered dumbass. So it's settled, then. Mia had a plan. Drop in and offer herself right before the climax After all, they need every brave body they can get their sweaty mitts on, otherwise, perhaps their fallen comrades will remind them of that...

She felt for the crook of her cane. Feeling the sudden sensation of the cold stainless steel, she felt further up until her hand came into contact with the rubber grip. She grasped it and stood up. Now, it was time to meet with the Skulls, like she intended. She didn't think she knew anyone in particular within the street gang, only word that a childhood "associate" was among them. To this, Mia shrugs and disregards - she knew quite a few people when she was younger. An associate was not much to go on and very much likely given the close quarter environment of Mendel.

She knew what this apartment felt like, just like the back of her hand. But it had become habit. She grasped the doorknob, and with deliberate gentleness and finesse, unlocked it before turning the knob and opening the door wide. She felt the warmth of the cheap, buzzing flood-light on her porch, bathing beneath it for just a moment. The air was cool enough to warrant the old brown leather jacket that Mia never intended on leaving behind, which was layered over her black and yellow plaid button-up (the sleeves of which were rolled to her elbows, but that is a factor unable to be determined underneath her jacket). Faded, baggy boot cut jeans were basically all she owned in terms of pants, with draped over old dirty mustard colored steel-toed work boots, that was laced and tied tightly around her feet.

She didn't bother locking the door behind her. Anybody who knew anything about East Mendel knew that there is nothing worth stealing around this neighborhood. Besides that, she at least had the good fortune ("good fortune", a very much laughable term these days) of living nearby comparatively good people who sought to do nothing but survive on their own. Having keys were somewhat of a liability anyways. They made you a target. With keys, it looked like you owned something. On days that she was especially pissed off, she'd carry keys just to have an excuse to "defend" herself. Even without keys, and even without owning anything, she was still at some sort of "risk". She was a woman. She owned enough. Enough of what many men around these parts want, anyway. And how "easy" it would be to get away with "attacking" poor little Mia...

Ha. Laughable. Nearly all men that targeted her didn't know what they were getting into. Nearly. Perhaps some people are just really desperate. She must be pretty pretty, Mia figured, or that there weren't many tails to chase around here. She fortunately beat enough people into a pulp that the "dogs" around the corner don't bark at her any more. "Dogs". Going deeper into the city was a different story. She didn't go deep very often. Usually the corner store was all she needed, and going in deep usually meant drug dealers and whorehouses and gang turf - things that wasn't her type of business. As a result, some people down there see a respectably attractive blind woman with a cane, and they start staring like starving wolves. From the sounds Mia heard, it seemed there was a party just a little ways down the street from here. Over east. It was the general direction that Mia recalled hearing all of the ruckus the other day. After all, she only lived a mile off. When Mia turned the corner on the sidewalk after feeling the edge of the curb with her cane, that was when one of the starving wolves tried to make their move. It was like a tickle in her ear. A crawl up her spine. She heard the rush of footsteps from behind, and large hands feeling up her back - and just as the cold, sharp blade caressed the peach hairs of her throat, Mia flipped up her cane and hooked it around the man's head with the crook before pulling forward and downward hard.

Her assailant was effortlessly tossed aside and was flung through air before making hard and abrupt impact with the dirty asphalt road. The wind was knocked from him and he cried out nothing but muted screams as he clutched his neck with one hand and his back with the other. Mia was unfazed. She felt around the ground with her boot, before coming up what felt to be the knife he was previously carrying. A quick stomp, and the gadget was shattered and flattened, and the rusted blade crumbled in a couple pieces. Letting her cane slide down through her hand until she came back to the grip, she continued walking, following the sound of music and shouts and motorcycles. On her way there, the blind woman would have been oblivious of the wary pack of wolves that had cut her a path on the sidewalk, as they were silently still and holding their breaths as she passed - but their beer ridden stench gave them away - but she would give them the benefit of the doubt.

The smell of street party was something to behold, alright. Beer, piss, shit, bile, and poorly made deviled eggs (which were probably laced with methamphetamine - she certainly wouldn't want to eat any deviled eggs made by anyone in Mendel). The rancid odor itself was a party. There hardly seemed any need to start an actual party. Still, she needed directions to "the big five" or “four” or whatever. As they called them around here. Those were directions not lightly given unless people took you seriously, and she felt the drunken gazes of hawks on her. Hawks that were, of course, intoxicated. But regardless, their talons were still sharp. So, what was a good way to get someone willing to talk? A blind punch? Hardly. That would knock the poor bastard out. She bumped into a man, ripe and muscular and shirtless. Huh. He'd have to do. Mia quickly turned around and grabbed his arm, before gently putting him against the brick wall of a building.

"So..." Mia purred softly, "do you think you can answer a question for me?" Her hands were feeling around on his bare shoulders. Oh god. That feeling. Was that beer, vomit, or sweat? This guy was a disgusting pig.

Whatever the guy looked like, or the expression on his face to which she was blind to, it sounded as if he was a-okay with this. For he said, "Sure babe, what is it?" The guy nearly sounded excited. Skull boys were so easy. Mia finally found the spot she was looking for - the pressure point in the neck! Ever had your pressure point pinched by a gal with super strength? The man crumpled to the ground in an instant, his entire body seized and both of his hands were trying to pry himself from Mia grip - and ultimately failing to do so. "Where's the big four?"

"The bar!" He cried out and pointed. This scene of course attracted the attention of a couple people watching. Mia knew this by how the crowd came just a little more silent, where other parts in the crowd laughed - those laughing were probably more familiar with these parts and were around for longer. Those were probably the people who knew that there were some gals around here you didn't fuck with. With Mia's other hand, he felt her victim's arm and hand to see where he was pointing. Mia let go of him and followed the trail she was sent on. These wolves were a little different. They didn't cut a path for her. They were a little more hardened than the dogs on the street. Feeling around with her cane was a little more difficult with all these meatbags in the way. But she did finally come in contact with something solid, and laughter a little bit upward and forward. A strange scent joined the mixture. It was strong, and it stung her nostrils just slightly. Regardless, she scaled the two or three steps it took to get into the bar, and she heard the musings of a couple other people. Mostly men. One woman. A slightly familiar sound, but there wasn't enough of it right now to make much out of it. She leaned against a wall next to the doorway, facing the bar stools. Well, this had to be the place. Better make an impression to these bozos.

"So I heard you scrubs were the "big four"." She crowed as she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. Okay, on second thought, that'd certainly make an impression. She didn't know how laid back these boys were or if they'd care - they were drunk. Anyways, she carried herself well - hopefully that was enough to mean she meant business. Certainly, Mia wanted to make business. And she had guts, if her statement said anything. Hopefully this was enough to warrant some attention from these bozos. She'd say that these guys didn't look so impressive, but that wasn't something that she would know.

Nickolas Slater

Nick simply looked at Johnny. No frown or smile, just simply looked at him with the kind of blank, stupid expression that one would mistake for someone calculating the sum of an infinite geometric sequence in his own mind. A genius at work. In reality Nick just didn't know how to respond because some idiot across the bar had yelled something as soon as Johnny spoke. "What?" he questioned, his eyebrows furrowing. "I didn't hear y-" the girl had beaten him to the punch by looking at Johnny in a much more body lingual way that pretty much said 'u wot m8' without actually saying it. She then turned back to himself and said something about alcohol. "I mean," he began, taking his drink that the waiter had placed down for him and taking a swig of it. "Pep le pew?" he said, raising a hand in Taylor's direction and splitting his fingers in the Star Trek 'live long and prosper' way. He continued responding to what he had said once he placed his hand back down. "It's an acquired taste. I ain't an alcoholic or nothin', but I can appreciate a good drink here and there." he said, taking another swig and finishing his drink. He levitated a few coins out of his pocket and onto the bar. He liked carrying coins, especially quarters because he could do some pretty cool magic tricks and get some street cash if he wanted. "I can agree with ya though," he said. "The music here is shit." he shook his head and took a look around he noticed Whisper leaving her seat, her face solemn.

When she stood by the window and did not move, Nick frowned. He frowned even more as he heard, just over the talking and music, police sirens. They were faint and just barely audible. He knew the sound anywhere being with the Vanguard for a while. Especially when the idiots of the bunch drove straight to his garage after a police chase to fix up their car with the police literally just behind them. Yes, that had happened. Oh, that reminded him of something! He turned over to Taylor again, trying to raise up some conversation. "You hear those cop sirens? Hope everyone's okay, Whisper," he said, using his pointer finger to motion to where the dust ninja was by the window. "...seems pretty upset 'bout somethin'." he said. "Reminds me of the time my buddy Keith tried camping out on top of a building once. He was shooting crows, but the police were too busy teargassin' him to ask what he was doin' up there. He screamed for an entire year every single time he opened his eyes! Oh, man! At first, it was funny; then it just got sad, but then it got funny again!" he said, his face breaking out into a smile. He turned and stared at the table for a moment.

He turned around as Titus entered the building, through the elevator. He had never seen that Vanguard before. In fact... He narrowed his eyes at the skull's signature on the huge man's coat. He shrugged and decided to let Mamba or something handle this one, or hell, not do anything. It wasn't like the guy was hurting anything, and as long as nothing went wrong he didn't give two shits who entered the bar.

Matthew Evans

Matt gave a brilliant smile to his sister, whom he brought into a quick hug. "You're drunk off your ass, sis." he said, placing an arm around her shoulder. "But thank you." He said. Tonight had been great so far, and of course life threw a screwball at him. Through most of the silence that came from Skeleton ordering everyone to quiet down, the opening and closing of the door was very obvious. In entered a younger lady, who was adjourned with a cane. He had seen them before, it was white and red, the colors that signified a blind person. He frowned at her words. Not because of her being incorrect in number, no, he had only just become a member of the Big's. It was the way she said it. "Big five, now." he corrected. Retracting his arm from Kylie's shoulder. "You come into the wrong? This bar doesn't look like a place you'd come too often." he said, crossing his arms. He looked over the Skeleton, he knew how to handle these things a bit better than he did. He hoped that the big man himself would step in at this point, or maybe Damian would take the show by storm like he always did. He, for once, hoped Damian would do that.

Byte



Byte growled, and slammed her laptop closed, and then proceeded to forcefully lift it and slam it down on the counter of her huge desk. She pushed off from her roller chair and over to her desk top, opening up Google Chrome and reopening the page she was just on in her laptop, typing away furiously, and within about the span of a minute about six different tabs opened up, as she navigated them with expert precision. She snarled, in success as she tracked the IP, and then simply opened up "Find my computer" and inputted the IP. Bingo. "Gotcha you fucking shit head." she said, grinning wickedly. She went over the the location in more detail.

Cairo, Nigeria.

"FUCK!" she yelled. "Fuck that shit!" she said, shutting down the computer and storming up and out of her seat. She needed a cold shower, bad. Sure she had just taken one a little while ago after the last internet tantrum, this one located specifically on a youtube comment thread about some idiot going on about HowToBasic not being an accurate source of information of how to do things. What the actual fuck? It was a comedic channel made to show you how not to do things. The person either missed the point entirely or was just stupid. And before that Tumblrinas were going insane over the fact that she didn't care about whatever patriarchy they thought existed. She then headed the 4chan #feminism raid in a fit of rage.

"Ray!" she called. "Where's the pin needle? Rush, I need you!" she hollered out to her buttmonkeys/room mates.

There was only one way to calm her down and therapeutic dick stabbing was it.

Skeleton

In the middle of the partying, a foreign voice sounded from the open front door of the bar. Skeleton's head snapped to where the voice came from, and he identified a newcomer, a young black woman in her twenties. She was decently attractive, but the cane in her hand and the sunglasses on her eyes (though Skeleton couldn't judge much for sunglasses, considering he never took his off) told him that she was blind. Why the hell would an attractive blind woman walk into the most dangerous bar in the city and ask for that name? he thought, rising from his seat Even if she is a meta, she must be either absolutely crazy or the ballsiest woman I've ever laid eyes upon. Skeleton placed his beer on the table and walked towards the door, his arms crossed across his chest in a disapproving manner. Already a few Skulls were beginning to turn towards the door, and none of them looked friendly. One of them began to tell her off, but Skeleton held up a hand and silenced the dissenter. He stopped about three feet away from the woman, hopefully a distance sufficient enough to be out of the range of the cane.

"Yeah, you're at the right place." Skeleton said gruffly "Who's asking?" Back where Matt and Kylie stood, Damian shifted cautiously from side to side. He drew a small throwing knife from his jacket and began to twirl it around his fingers expertly. As the spinning increased in speed, the knife began to spin like the blade of a fan and vibrate. From this angle, Damian couldn't see the cane, and so he assumed this was just your average garden-variety East Mendel mook, probably drunk and on a dare. If she so much as flinched, he could throw the knife at the speed of a bullet and blow her head clean off her shoulders.

Col. Ivan Petrov and Dr.Tobias Wright

Friday night was bar night. Every Friday, Colonel Petrov descended the hardwood staircase of his house just outside of Mendel, grabbed his cane, kissed his wife on the cheek, and a few moments later drove off for the city in his black Chrysler 300. He drove into the city, his mind partially on autopilot as he turned left down Watson street and arrived at a tall, rectangular house painted dark red. He beeped, and a minute or so later, Dr.Wright opened his door and shut it carefully behind him, fumbling with his keys to lock the door. He was wearing a black wool coat, for it was rather chilly, which only showed two of his six arms, and the other four were wrapped around his body. A black fedora rested on his head, which looked rather comical with his cranial appearance.

"Sorry for the delay." Dr.Wright said as he sat down in the passenger's side of Ivan's car "Had to feed the fish."

"If you eat now, you'll lose your appetite." Ivan mused jovially.

"Go to Hell, Scarface." Wright retorted.

Soon they arrived at the usual spot, a bar on 33rd Street called "Our Place". It was a small hole-in-the-wall dive with green awnings outside and a large sandwich board that contained the day's specials. Ivan entered the bar, and waved hello to the bartender, a large redheaded woman. Ivan and Dr.Wright sat down at the counter in their usual spots, and she walked over.

"Evenin, hun." she said happily to the men "What'll it be?"

"The usual." Ivan said "A Yuengling and wings." She didn't even need to write it down. That was what Ivan liked so much about this place; it was cozy and friendly, a place where everybody knows your name, like that sitcom from the nineties.

"And for you, hun?" the bartender asked Dr.Wright.

"The usual." She nodded and walked over to the kitchen, where she yelled something rather indicative of a fifties diner, and then grabbed the beers. She brought them back to the two friends and then rushed off to attend another man who entered.

"So how goes the research?" Ivan asked Dr.Wright.

"A little slow, as of late." Dr.Wright replied after swallowing a gulp of beer "Ever since my old research assistant quit, I've been really bogged down with number crunching. It's given me a new appreciation for their work. How's the family?"

"It's been better." Ivan replied.

"Any luck with the kids?" Ivan sighed and took another drink of beer, as if it were anasthesia.

"No, unfortunately." he said "We're seeing a fertility specialist on Wednesday."

"Sorry to hear." Wright replied "I'm glad you're taking my advice, though."

About five minutes of chatter and another round of beers passed when a familiar-looking man sat up at the bar next to Ivan. It was Baron, and he had questions about a murder. Ivan looked at him hard a moment, trying to remember exactly who the man was, and his eyes widened when he realized that it was Baron, his old squadmate from the Dreadnaughts. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing Ivan did not know. Hopefully the dumbass wouldn't try to get him back into the war.

"Doc Moreau?" he said "Haven't seen you in forever. No, I haven't heard anything about a murder, unfortunately. I saw the flashing lights up ahead, but I thought it was just a car crash or something. Who's been killed?"

Cassidy Lynn Daniels

There are a great many types of games you can play. Chess, checkers, blackjack, poker...truly, Cassidy Lynn Daniels was only interested in playing one type of game: a skin game.

Cassidy Lynn sat alone, surveying the Club 76's patrons from behind her glasses. The only one she really recognized was Little Miss Whisper, who had built up quite the name for herself. Cass wasn't the sort to run around in gang circles-talented though those gangs might be-but she recognized the Vanguard's little ringleader. She was the quiet one. Demure. She had the presence of a leader-you could see it in the way everyone else glanced at her, as if for approval. People ordered food for her and gave it to her. Same for drinks. Presumably, they did the same thing with corpses when the Vanguards started to get bored. Cassidy didn't plan on staying in Mendel for very long-she'd do her tricks for a few weeks and ride off into the sunset, but there was a certain charm to this city. Not to stay in, never to stay in, but perhaps to extend her stay by a week or two. Two gangs, each on the brink of warfare? A whisper (pardon the pun) of a murder on the horizon? This city felt like the Cold War, and Cassidy wanted to be there when it went hot. She'd have a lovely little vantage point to see all the fireworks below.

A little grin tugged at Cass' thin lips. Whisper? She was gonna put on one hell of a show. But she wasn't gonna make it out alive. Cassidy stuck to magic tricks, mostly, but she'd always mused about going into the psychic business. You had to have a touch of it to really sell an audience, regardless...and while there wasn't anything metahuman about her hunches, she had a good feeling that Whisper was either going to mosey out of Mendel or die in the gutters like a rabid dog.

But she wasn't the only patron, was she? There was a boy floating around spare change (Oh, this one's the fool. Never show your hand, love. ) and another dressed almost half as fashionably as Cassidy was (But the star sunglasses really are pushing it too far ), both warring over a little dame sitting at the bar (I think she lives near me....yes, she does. Same floor. ) Mmm. Some insecure looking girl was passing something to Kiyoshi, and there were a few of Whisper's little lapdogs groveling around her. All in all, a pretty motley crew.

Oh, and the knuckle-dragger that followed Cassidy Lynn. She could hardly blame him. The Fox? Little Miss Trickster? THE Cassidy Lynn Daniels? Why, who wouldn't follow after her? Presumably seeking an autograph. Or, given the gaudy emblem splashed over his jacket, perhaps he was just after something a bit more primeval.

Regardless, there were quite a few different types at the bar.

Skin games were to be had. Cassidy Lynn stood up, took a brief moment to straighten her suit and casually strolled across the bar, which was really rather mellow. No boisterous types starting fights, no agonized screams of recently-bankrupted-gamblers watching a sports game play out. A few guys hitting on a femme fatale and a hint of inner city violence. Cassidy Lynn saw a powderkeg in a coal mine in the Club 76, and she was itching for a smoke.

She reached the bar with a dazzling smile stretched across her face, the light scar on her face barely visible in the dim light of the bar. "Barkeep," Cassidy purred as she drew out three hundred dollars in cash, placing it on the bar. "Could I please have something delicious from your top shelf, two glasses, and a spoon?" She batted her eyelashes, purple eyeshadow against dark mascara. "Pretty please?"

Her request, shall we say, was quickly met. Carrying the bottle of champagne in one hand and the glasses in the other, she strolled with perfect grace across the bar and sat across from Titus MacArthur at his table, a soft little smirk on her face as she poured him a glass and slid it to him, pouring herself an ample amount before taking a delicious swig straight from the bottle. She placed it on the right side of the table, positioning it just so. Behind her a little ways sat Whisper and her cronies. In front of her about twenty feet or so was the trio of young'uns trying to jump into each others' pants. And in the center, the very center, sat Cassidy with the unfortunate result of an elephant mating with a steroid-addled human. Cassidy drew out a deck of cards and shuffled them casually, her fingers performing the task with such innate ease, one would perhaps question if she was actually born doing it. She slapped the two perfectly even halves of cards on the table and with surgical precision, used her well-filed nails to draw out a business card from within her coat. "I didn't catch your name," Cassidy drawled, placing the business card face down on the tops of the decks. She reached over to the bottle of champagne and pulled it close to her mouth. Her tongue pressed against her cheek and she fumbled around within her mouth for a moment, jaw moving as her tongue probed some hidden cavity within her teeth. She opened up, holding a wedding ring inbetween her pearly whites and somehow managing to smile as she did so. She let the ring fall into the bottle of champagne where it promptly sunk to the bottom. "But I think we should have a little fun tonight. That's Jack Frost's wedding ring at the bottom of this delicious bottle. Covered in all sorts of murderous, murderous fingerprints. And I've got," She pulled out Jenna's business card, "The contacts of a lovely little PI over there. Did you know she was Jackie's little fling on the side? His wife," Cassidy nodded at the bottle with her head, "Had no idea. And she was right there when it went down. Saw it all happen. And with her little lover wasted like a Thursday night sorority girl, well, she'd be awful happy to see a young bull like you come a-knockin' at the door." Cassidy, with one hand, shuffled the cards, "But the thing is, she's skipping town on account of this whole mess. She's over there talking to Whisper for protection. You've got an hour to call her private line," Cass flipped the business card over to reveal a phone number scrawled across the back, hastily etched. Before Titus could read it properly, she flipped it back over and laid it on top of one of the halves. She slipped the other over it and, with one hand, deftly shuffled out the cards, slapping six cards face down. "Six cards. So what I wanna see is this. Do you want to drink this entire bottle of champagne and get some hard evidence of who eighty-sixed your friend," Cassidy tapped the bottom of the bottle with a nail and the ring shifted slightly. "Of course, I count six Vanguards in here. And they may not be as friendly as me if you got all drunk and defenseless." Cassidy tapped the table next to the six cards resting on the table, "Or...do you want the business card. I'll give ya three tries. Fifty fifty chance. Either way," Cassidy said, drawing back in her seat, a comfortable distance (one that was out of Titus' arms' reach, most importantly) from him, "Cheers." Cass lifted her glass and took a deep sip, watching Titus with anticipation.

See, when you're a performer, you get a knack for who's smart enough to figure out your tricks and who's not. Just by sizing somebody up. And Cassidy knew very, very well that Titus wasn't falling into that first camp. He'd smash the bottle or try and grab all the cards or something similar. Or maybe he'd play along. Maybe Whisper and friends would take the bait and get involved. Either way, she was going to enjoy her night. The spoon rested on the table, forgotten amongst all the other lovely little toys Cassidy wanted to play with. Oooooh was she going to enjoy it. Little games like this. They say variety's the spice of life.

"Oh," Cassidy said off-handedly, as if she'd suddenly remembered, "I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Joanna Lee. But you can just call me whatever you feel like. Now, let's have some fun."

Skin games. Skin games were the only kind worth playing.

Samson Isiah Jeross.

Clubs were cool and all, but they were never Samson's thing. A drink or two with some friends were fun, but he was the man who preferred a nice cancer stick while watching the city move. It went without saying where Samson was hanging out. On top of Club 76, lying down, with a cigarette between his fingers and not a care in the world. At least until duty called again. It was probably a waste of time getting dressed up, only to hang out on top of the building away from everyone else. He was wearing a professional black suit with white pinstripes, and these nice dress shoes. He might have looked professional if it wasn't for the straw hat fedora he had on. This old hat was sentimental to him, he didn't go anywhere without it. Thus, he kept it on him at all times. Samson's cellphone buzzed, speakers blurting, "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up?" Hm? Samson pulled out his phone and curiously looked at it.

Police cars on Clyde St. 3 sirens. Might be meta. Check it out.

Well, it was something to do, and Samson was never one to disobey Whisper. This sounded like it was Vanguard business anyway. Samson smirked, he got up on his feet. He stepped up to the edge of the building and looked down. He flicked the cigarette off the roof. Samson had to whistle, that was one hell of a drop. Good thing he could fly - Because he's so fly. He was consumed in a flaming wreathe, burning hot with brilliant orange flames. Despite this, his clothes weren't singed even in the slightest. He took one step off, and, to the surprise of anyone looking on, he isn't about to commit suicide after setting himself on fire. He began floating in mid-air, the flames dropped downwards.

Samson valiantly flew through the air, leaving behind a trail of fire like a shooting star. Now where was Clyde St again? Somewhere in West Mendel. Samson quickly flew there, at a haste speed, since when the police are involved, it's best to handle it soon as possible. It should be a simple mission, right? Just check things out. If anyone gets hostile, Samson is fast enough to bail the hell out of there, or tough enough to put someone down. Samson landed on the rooftops, he cut the flames, and looked down curiously at the scene. He gave the place a good look. There were police everywhere, they had the place taped off. Someone was killed here, definitely... But who? He listened in closely, he noticed that the Skulls and (... And John Frost?) were mentioned a few times. Dear, God. Samson stood straight up and put a hand on his chin. If this was a Skull...

Someone was in a hurry to leave... a Skull. This went against protocol, but another wreath of flames surrounded Samson as he flew through the sky to tail this mystery Skull. If anything pops off, he's going to leave. He doesn't want to add fuel to the fire.

Johnny Kin Valos.

"... You are an immeasurable moron." Nick's story had destroyed Johnny's faith in humanity so badly that he decided to go off himself - Because this world just isn't ready for the J-train. Johnny slid out of his chair as he walked away. Letting Taylor receive Nick's stanky dangalang.

Caden Isiah Zorich.

My, my... A woman comes in here and asked for the Big Four - No, Five. Caden will have to get used to that. But that isn't the point! Some woman came in here and called them 'Scrubs'. Caden had absolutely no idea what that meant, but it amused him. Even made him giggle like a child and stare at Mia through his glasses. He didn't know what she came for - But! He knew that she had darkness in her heart. Beautiful darkness... The kind of darkness that wells up inside of people from a lifetime of tragedy. Which made her far more interesting than any mere woman. Long as she was a Meta-human, Caden didn't care, and was willing to let Skeleton handle it. Which is what the Skull's illustrious leader was doing. Taking a small chance and letting Mia talk. Funny thing about talking was when no one is listening, it's empty air. Noise. It would be fun to watch if this woman had something to offer. Because no one but the truly stupid, suicidal, or over confident would ever consider tangling with the Skull's powerful magistrate.

Either way, Caden was going to make a show! He turned into inky black darkness and dripped onto the floor until he was nothing but a puddle. Along the floor, Caden was moving through everyone's positions like one thin stream. Until he was close enough to Mia. He suddenly snapped back to his human form and stared her dead in the eye with an odd smirk. While he transformed back into a human, there was a pool of darkness, meters wide, underneath his feet. Anyone who touched it would notice how thick and squishy it felt. "... Now isn't this delicious?" Caden spoke with a delighted cackle, "There's already so much darkness in your heart... Growing, waiting to be released... I just wonder where it all went wrong!" Caden slid across the floor back towards the crowd, using his darkness powers, seeing as he had "... Just something I'd like to point out to everyone, I am going to let our leader, Skeleton, handle it from here."

Unless you want to die.

Reiko Silas Ain.

Now this was an interesting turn of events. Reiko had already sensed Mia's presence, she reeked of traces of blood - Which was quite tempting, if she hadn't learned to control her bestial instincts ages ago. Regardless, Reiko only gave her a look before she continued drinking her fine wine. She expected some of the Skulls to toss her out any second now. What she didn't expect was for Mia to speak so boldly to the Big Five. Reiko smirked in her booth, obscured by the darkness of the room. She wondered how they'd react. She knew Skeleton was cruel, but even he wasn't stupid enough to kill for such petty reasons. He wouldn't have built this empire of dirt otherwise. The others, unfortunately, were stupid enough, but with one wave of his hands, he silenced him. Reiko likened the situation to a alpha calming his over eager pack. Regardless, Reiko felt the need to get up and say something. Show respect after all.

For Mia was not one to be underestimated. Reiko was not stupid enough to dismiss her because of her disability. This is a proud woman before them, and most likely had strength to back it up. She knew what she was getting into, and accepted it. Thus, why they're here. Though, Reiko didn't underestimate Mia, she didn't really see her as a threat - Not in the way of combat prowess, but Reiko knew if she wanted a fight, she would have already gotten one, or would have taken a less direct route... Though, if she tried anything, Skeleton and Damian would make short work of her... She wondered if they'd let her consume what was left of her. But it all doesn't have to come to that. Violence breeds violence, after all.

Which is why Reiko remained leery of Mia. Even as she walked up to the scene, Mia didn't escape her vision. Already the proud huntress had a thin layer of respect for Mia. Let's see where that goes. She stood next to young Matthew. She didn't want to stand next to the Big Boss, but she felt more comfortable around Matt. Reiko had her wine-glass in hand. She took a sip, and put a hand on her hip, giving Mia a sinister grin. "... I can tell that she is exactly where she wanted to be." She said to Matt. "No one else would come here except for those with suicidal overconfidence..."

Dexter 'Rush' Chertok, & Ray Judah Drager.

Meanwhile, in the Hacker HQ...

Nothing.

Both boys were off doing their own thing in between missions. "Their own thing" being sit around on their asses and wait until something interesting pops up. Ray was lying on his back, on the sofa reading a random maginzine, wearing nothing but a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and work boots. He had his sunglasses rested on the night table. He was normally this way. He was the quiet guy. Never wanted to be bothered, and never bothered anyone else. Ray liked it that way... Unfortunately, he had to live with such a massive pain in the ass that just so happened to be his boss. Like some goddamn sitcom. Airing on ABC this summer! Ray rolled his eyes at the absurdity of the situation.

On the other hand, there was Dexter Chertok in the other room. Like Ray, he didn't want to be bothered. He was sitting down, leaning over a new invention - A gun of some sort, loaded with several special darts - tinkering with it using screwdrivers and pliers. He was almost robotic in the way he worked. He didn't move, and he ignored most of his bodily needs until he was finished. Wearing a black trench coat, with a lime-green shirt underneath, and black sweat pants. Naturally, he had on his combat boots since he was going to wear clothes. Their leader Byte started calling them, and Rush didn't want anything to do with it. "Drager!" Rush pointed down the hall.

Ray crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, "Look I-" He was cut off.

"Very busy." Rush snapped.

"But I'm not dea-" Ray tried to plead.

"See what she wants."

"Ugh!" Why the hell does Ray have to put up with everyone's shit? And when the hell did he become a angsty teenager? Whatever. Ray rushed down the hallway and asked Byte. "Do we have a job? Because I'm bored out of my damn mind..."

Mia Jones

“Oh, it's five now, pardon me.” Mia droned. Whoever had said that, they sounded like a younger boy. Barely old enough to keep down his liquor. And God be damned, he was still talking. Something about coming into the wrong place, and who or what looks like another thing, and quite frankly, Mia didn't quite care.

“Hold on to your booster seat for a moment,” she said snidely as she leaned against her cane, “I have business to discuss.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, she next heard a voice that sounded befitting of a street gang. It was gruff. Rough and tumble. But it wasn't derogatory in the same sense of the dogs out front. It was inquisitive. It spoke of authority. Seasoned years hardened by tragedy – that was a familiar sound. There was some sense of satisfaction to be found in finally getting to a place where your ambitions can be met, and to speak with someone supposedly worth the salt they weigh in.

“Yeah, you're at the right place.” Said the voice. “Who's asking?”

“I'm asking.” Mia interjected. “I've got a few bones to pick and for some reason I thought a bunch of drunks could help me with that. Or I help you, whatever. This is where I put in that clichéd back-scratching analogy.”

Then some creepazoid fucktard came along. She didn't see all the special effects, but it was the unnatural way she heard him creep in and how his tongue slithered as he spoke that made her instantly loathe him. It dripped with malice and venom and this was someone she simply didn't trust. He felt his warm, damp breath tickle her neck as he went on on his spiel about her "inner darkness". Mia clenched her fist. Come an inch closer and you're going to find out.

Thankfully, he backed off. He was making some kind of dramatic noise about how he'd let someone else take care of the rest; their leader, Skeleton. "... Just something I'd like to point out to everyone," he said dramatically, "I am going to let our leader, Skeleton, handle it from here."

So this freak of nature was just wasting her time, then. Next time he bothers her like that again, she intended on burying him beneath the pavement.

“That's good,” Mia retorted, “because I didn't come to talk to sheep.”

The sound of the metal sliding out of someone's pocket didn't escape her notice. Neither did the subtle swirling of the air, nor did the song the metal sing as it built momentum and cut the air around it. Someone was twirling a blade. How cute. If Mia could feel her eyes, she'd roll them. Instead, to convey a very similar message, she turned her head and rubbed her brows with her spare hand and sighed. “And let me add that I don't like showy tricks. If you're gonna pull a knife, I hope you're gonna try to use it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Baron Moreau

“In the flesh! It's been some time.” Baron chimed as he straddled the bar seat and spun it around to lean his back against the bar counter. He still kept a rather youthful appearance and his attire had likely changed very little, if any, since their time in the Dreadnaughts. Truly, Baron was still apart of them. He was on paid leave. Ivan, though, he was on the bomb squad. In fact, he was the explosives expert that led the team. He knew that there was quite the amount of chemistry to be aware of in that line of work, but bombs weren't exactly Baron's forte. His forte was with people. Which in turn, if you were to look at it metaphorically, were much like time bombs themselves. His relationship was Ivan wasn't especially extensive, but they have their history. Baron was the psychiatrist. Ivan came in at some point or another and became his patient for some time. He was a pretty interesting guy to say the least.

“Oh yes,” Baron asserted, “those are for that murder up the ways. We suspect that the victim was someone from the Skulls. You and I can probably expect we won't be getting much sleep now.”

He craned his head to check out the man beside Ivan. His skin was peculiar. He seemed mutated. Another meta-human? Some were very subtle, but others, like Ivan's associate, seems to be less fortunate. There wasn't any hiding that.

“So who's your friend?” He asked.

Abigail "Rabbit" O'Reilly

She stared to her right after someone had responded to her mumbling, squinting her eyes and trying to make out who it was that had responded to her. Her vision was beginning to get a bit fuzzy, maybe more than a bit if she kept at the drinks at this speed. It looked like Emilio was the one who’d talked to her.

“Nah, fuck this music.” Rabbit mumbled and gestured in a swaying manner, then drank the rest of the whiskey in her glass. “Wanna listen to something rowdy and fast, true music, not this… whatever you call this. Smooth jazz? Pfft, I’d show you real music, but I doubt they’ve got anything like it here.”

Rabbit let her guard down more the drunker she got, so she decided to stop drinking at this point. Otherwise she’d end up doing something she’d regret and never remember, but everyone else would remember it. Oh, people loved to remind her of those blackout moments where she’d lost her memory and caution. Some more than others.

Umi “The Ghouls” Ichikawa

Umi heard the sirens where she sat in a vacant apartment and looked up. The sirens passed her by though. She didn’t wonder what had happened this time. She just assumed someone else had fucked up. Someone had always fucked up when the police got involved. The police got involved when she did her thing too, but that was all part of the game. It was a part of life in this city for her to the point that it became as ordinary as hearing any car pass by. She evaded their attention like she evaded everyone else.

Returning her attention to her shotgun, she put the last piece back in it and then took out a rag from one of her coat pockets. She began to shine and polish the shotgun’s details, mostly to pass the time. She’d already cleaned them individually. It was a finishing touch so to speak. A couple of more hours, and it would be past midnight. She’d earn her keep this night like any night. The jewellery on her hands, around her neck and in her ears made it obvious she wasn’t lacking when it came to funds. There was no such thing as too much money, and there never would be. Growing up in poverty had made her realize how much money was worth. They said it wouldn’t buy happiness, but you’d sure as hell be more depressed without the money to get by each day.

Once she’d finished shining her weapon she loaded it with a couple of the shotgun shells she kept in her jacket, and left the vacant apartment she’d broken into hours earlier. As far as she knew no one knew where her actual home was, but she tried to avoid staying there for too many days in a row. She lived her life on the move, each day at a time, as a candle in the wind. Umi would welcome a bed for the coming day, any bed, as sleeping on the floor was bad for her back.

She replicated herself before she exited the apartment building itself, and hid the shotgun beneath her coat. Umi walked in the dark, avoiding lights when she could, while she used her replica to scout ahead and draw the attention off of her. She headed towards the eastern parts of Mendel, where the lowlifes were everywhere. She liked the western parts more as she wasn’t as likely to be stabbed over absolutely nothing. Of course, by now it was possibly that most had some reason or other to stab her. Not like they could tell the difference between her and her replicas anyway.

Kylie "Grease" Evans

"Oh you shut your mouth you bastard!" Grease slurred, returning her brothers hug with a smile. It was rare to see her so lovingly open. "I am barely drunk! I've only had half of four bottles of vodka." She said with a gleeful chuckle, giving Matt a loud kiss on the cheek, one like a parent might give to their child on the first day of kindergarten. "And besides there is plenty of reason to celebrate!" She gave Matt and affectionate noogie, which looked more like a drunken pat on the head. She didn't seem all the affected by the sudden entrance of the stranger, she seemed more interested in jabbing Damian in the ribs to see if he would flinch.

There was something about this stranger that Grease recognized, but she passed it off as someone she might have just seen in passing. At the moment she seemed far too drunk to care about how this, or maybe she was just trying to ignore this feeling. But as soon as the stranger mentioned Big Four as opposed to Big Five Grease felt strangely offended. She really shouldn't have, as the Big Five had been the Big Four only minutes ago, but she still stood up a big straighter as she addressed the stranger. "Yeah...lady...you have a lot of nerve coming around here." She took a moment to refocus, leaning against Mathew for a moment.

"I'll have you know that Matty here has just been promoted to a Big and it would do you a hellava good to treat him with some respect." At this point it seemed like Grease wasn't even talking to the stranger anymore, she was talking down towards the ground. There was something about this stranger that Grease was just not liking. She seemed to act like she was better then them, or at least that's how a drunken Kylie interpreted Mia's confidence. How dare this stranger waltz into their bark during her little brothers celebration, just to brush off all of their intimidation factors.

Skeleton and Damian

Damian continued to twirl the blade, intentionally ignorant of the blind woman's threat, until Caden decided to speak. Damian rolled his eyes and sheathed the knife in an inside pocket of his vest; why the Hell did Skeleton ever let that creep speak? He sat back down, now beginning to grow disinterested, and grabbed a beer rather aggressively from the counter. He hated being shut down.

"My vote's for suicidally overconfident," he said to Reiko "But whatever. I'll let take care of this one."

Skeleton stood his ground, his arms still crossed and his pokerface hidden by his mask. Woman talks too much for my taste. He thought, cracking his neck. He looked around the bar and people's eyes darted downwards to avoid his glare, as if looking him in the eyes were a challenge. Most Skulls these days were far too cowardly for Skeleton's taste. If this new girl had anything, she had guts, and Skeleton liked that. He was silent for a few moments, and then gestured for Reiko to come over. She would be his best bet for this test.

"Alright," Skeleton said "You've caught my attention. You've got balls, I'll give you that, but it takes more than balls to be a Skull; you need to be able to kick some ass too. So here's what I'm going to do; I'm going to give you a combat test, same as I give to every other Skull who joins." This was partially a lie, as the "test" to get into the Skulls was usually against an unwitting police officer, but he wanted to see how tough she was. "So you and my associate Reiko here," he gestured to Reiko "Are going to have a little sparring match outside in the street. Pin Reiko for three seconds, and you're in. Fail, and I kick your ass from here to New Orleans. How's that sound to you?" Back at the bar, Damian rolled his eyes and walked over to stand next to Grease, beer in hand.

"And now Skeleton uses Reiko as a punching bag once more." he said quietly.

Emilio, Whisper, and Titus

As Rabbit descended further into drunken confusion, Emilio lost interest in her. He could speak to a drunk any time just by crossing the bridge. She wasn’t that interesting, anyways; anyone who insulted Jack Johnson was not on Emilio’s friend list. Emilio turned towards the heavyset woman approaching him and looked down at the car reproachfully. He took it and, turning it in his hand, looked back up at her with a quizzical look on his face.

"Yeah, sure." he said "I'll give it to her." Whisper watched as Samson took off from the top of the building, and turned away, her mind now at rest. Samson was a good man, one of her favorite men, and she trusted that he would get the job done. She sat back down at her seat and, noticing that there was a mozzarella stick missing, cast a quizzical glare at Emilio from the corner of her eye. Some could even say she started to smile. She took another drink and gazed towards the end of the semicircular bar counter where the mechanic was flirting with an attractive blonde girl. Good for him, she thought. She didn't know the mechanic very well, but she had heard from some of the other members that he was a bit of a romantic. The less boys she had after herself, the better. She knew that Emilio liked her, even though he was decent at hiding it, and she had seen Johnny staring at her erroneous zones a few times. She hated this because she knew that the Vanguard boys didn't like her for her personality or her appearance, but for her authority. They were in love with her political power, and if any other girl had it, they would be flocking to her instead. Emilio slid Whisper the card.

“Some chick gave this to me.” he said “Something about detectives. Whisper read it carefully and then, taking out a wallet, stuffed it into a card slot and replaced it in an inside pocket of her jacket. She opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped and took another drink. The place was beginning to get boring when out of the corner of her eye she saw an extraordinarily large man sitting across from Cassidy Lynn.



Titus sat rather confused, his eyes darting between the cards in Cassidy’s hands and the ring at the bottom of the bottle. How..what...where did she… His brain hurt. He opened his mouth several times to speak, but no sound came out. His grip intensified on the table, causing hairline cracks to spread across the glass. “Um…” he muttered, remembering that he had to answer her. His mouth hung agape for a few moments, and then he closed it. He looked up, and his eyes widened.

She was staring right at him.

Whisper was standing now. Her left hand slowly slid up her jacket and stopped where the sheath of her knife was. It was a footlong wakizashi made of Japanese steel. She unzipped her jacket as if she had practiced the movement many times before, and grabbed the handle of the blade with her right hand. She elbowed Emilio in the shoulder, and he spun around in his bar stool. Before his mouth could open, his serpentlike eyes narrowed on Titus through his sunglasses.

“Son of a bitch.” Emilio muttered “I thought I shoved his steroid-laden ass in the river three months ago.”

“Well apparently you didn’t do a very good job.” Whisper said, the first time she spoke since entering the bar. She nodded to the bartender, and, grimacing, he retreated through a door and into the kitchen, hoping to stay out of trouble. The others followed suit. One reached for their phone to dial 911, but a venomous glance from Emilio stopped her mid-dial. She placed the phone on the bar counter and shuffled out of the room.

“Let’s fix that. Rabbit! Nick! We have a job to do.” Titus rose from his seat, realizing that he was now in a considerable amount of trouble. He looked around; no Skulls in the restaurant and no one to help him. Emilio turned to the rest of the bar, which had gone deathly quiet with the vanishing of the staff, and they snapped to attention.

“Sorry for the disturbance, everyone, but for your own safety and the safety of others we’re going to have to ask you to leave the restaurant.” This sentence had obviously been practiced by Emilio many times before. As the crowd moved, Titus rose from his seat and went to turn around, where he found Whisper staring him in the eyes, knife drawn. His eyes widened and he grabbed the table by the sides. He swung it through the air at Whisper, not caring that he probably splattered Cassidy’s brains across the wall, and threw it at the bar counter. Emilio jumped up and grabbed it midair to keep the table from smashing the liquor shelves.

“Let’s try not to rough the place up too much.” he said to the other Vanguard members “I haven’t finished my beer yet and I want to come back for the next World Series game.”

Ivan and Toby

“Oh shit.” Ivan cursed upon hearing the news. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the waitress walked over and sat the plates of food in front of them. He mentally did a check of the arsenal at his house; yes, the AK-74 was under the bed, and its magazine was in the bottom drawer of the nightstand. The .44 was in the living room under one of the sofa cushions. The knife was...where was the knife again? While Ivan looked down at the counter nervously, Dr.Wright extended a tentacled hand to Baron.

“Doctor Tobias Wright.” he said “Professor of genetics at Mendel University and Ivan’s co-worker.” The waitress looked over at Baron.

“Anything I can getcha, hun?” she asked.

---

Outside, it had begun to rain. Tara was about a block and a half away when she looked up and saw that she was being followed. God dammit She said to herself How am I still employed? She quickly dismounted the building she was on and fell down four stories into an alleyway. A glow of yellow light cushioned her fall. She ran out into the crowd, attempting to hide amongst the stragglers, always heading towards the parking garage where she kept her Harley. If she could get there, she could easily escape and get back home in enough time to get backup.

May

The rain had begun to fall in Mendel. Murders? Rainstorms? And a small army of superpowered fucktards running amok.

Rain fell soft and slow on the black Thunderbird resting outside of Our Place. It had been there for a suspicious amount of time, unmolested by gangbangers or car strippers, unnoticed by the police. Perhaps two or three days, which was a subjective eternity to be motionless on the streets of Mendel. Still, this was a decent neighborhood to leave a vintage car. The sleek black steel was unblemished, not a single speck of mud or inch of rust. It was...out of place, to say the least, next to some beat up old jalopy and one of those awkward three-wheel motorcycles. The car sat silent, still, but almost alive, as it was a hibernating bear as opposed to steel and fiberglass. Someone watching very closely would perhaps notice the side mirrors twitch just a hair in either direction before the windshield wipers, stealthy as mute ninjas, squicked the front windshield totally dry. They settled back into place, the raindrops rolling off the car and keeping it far drier than it should've been under the circumstances.

It waited quietly, mirror-sheen polish glinting in the Mendel nightlight, an almost sad loneliness across the car's perfectly maintained exterior.

Cassidy May Lynn

That Whisper! A flash of irritation danced across Cassidy's features. Did Cassidy go over and interrupt Whisper's little gang games? No. No she didn't. Did she go over and whip out the sword from Whisper's sheath-and, in lieu of razor-edged steel, pull out a bouquet of flowers? No. She did none of these things. So why did the Vanguard's uppity little headmistress feel the need to interrupt Cass' fun? Besides, it wasn't like Titus had any chance of winning. Cassidy observed the confusion across his face, cobwebbed portions of his brain labelled "critical thinking" and "analysis" being forced to start up after many dormant decades of slumber. Bah. No. Fun. At all. No, maybe she wouldn't be staying in Mendel very long. These people may be interesting, but they certainly didn't have much in the way of common courtesy.

"Leave?" Cassidy Lynn murmured to herself. "The fun is just getting started." Cass reached over and grabbed the bottle, the little wedding ring (shh, lemme tell you a secret-it was made of plastic) fading away into nothingness as Cassidy's little conjuration trick wore thin without her active effort. She raised the bottle to the silent bar and said, just audibly, "To debauchery!" before placing it on her lips and taking another deep tug. Of course, things were about to get rather violent within Club 76, and Cassidy had rather had enough violence for one night. As Titus ( [/i]predictably, boringly, lamely-does no one value originality anymore? Theatricality, children, let's work on it a touch[/i] ) ripped out the table, things almost seemed to blur in slow motion for the lightning-fast Cassidy Lynn. One by one, the cards flipped in the empty air, falling down towards the ground. Six different Jokers-no business cards-swirled in the empty air, prolonging their fall so the wine glasses and spoon could have a chance to catch up. Lynn closed her lips, sealing off the bubbly champagne as Titus loosed the table.

Lynn closed her eyes and, for a heartbeat and a half, was not physically in the bar. Poof. Gone. Just like that.

A moment later she was back in her seat, the spoon and the cards falling lamely to the floor (Cass quietly nudged the spoon and flipped it back) and the wine glasses shattering, prompting a sigh from Cassidy as she lowered the bottle. There was nothing but total nonchalance across her features-a bored sort of frown on her face, emotionless eyes hidden behind equally distant mirrored shades. "Not that money's an issue here, but just on general principle, I can't pay for that. Making such a mess of things." Cass leaned over, vaguely aware of Whisper and friends probably about to engage in some well-choreographed fight scene around her, and ripped tablecloth off the table next to her. She draped it over the shattered glass, the playing cards and the silver spoon, and jerked it up quickly, leaving only an empty floor devoid of any mess behind. Cassidy, back in the days when she found gambling to be amusing (the appeal had long since worn off, as she could win rather effortlessly with the usage of her powers), was rather used to the escalation of tensions within establishments such as this. Or, as the layperson called them, bar fights. She'd found the best course of action-aside from, of course, just walking out the front door (and using the chaos as a cover to avoid paying) to be getting a front row seat to the whole mess. This, of course, ran the risk of you getting a glass bottle to the back of the skull or a haymaker to the nose, but you ran those risks walking down the street, now didn't you?

Cassidy Lynn leaned back in her seat, surveying the unfolding chaos with amusement. Really now, it seemed like resorting to violence so quickly was just barbaric. One fellow-admittedly, not a very bright one, could probably be talked into leaving without too much difficulty. She off-handedly wondered how the private investigator dame was going to react to all this-if she had the brains that PIs are generally known for, she figured that the detective would make like a tree and get the fuck out of there. But life wouldn't be any fun if everyone acted all sensibly and rationally-hence why Cassidy was enjoying sitting in the center of the hurricane. Whisper dis-and-re-appeared. Eh. Okay form, but Cassidy had seen smoother. The one fellow intercepted the flying table. That was chivalrous. He also wanted to come back and watch baseball. Baseball. Bleh. At least in football they had trick plays, or the occasional sneaky penalty kick in soccer. Baseball was far too monotone for Cassidy's liking.

"An oaf, a ninjess, and a ballplayer walk into a bar," Cassidy murmured to herself, taking a small sip of the champagne and rolling a quarter over her knuckles (hey! where did that come from?) idly. "And the barkeep says, 'I must be Mendel to serve these fools! Snare drums. Everybody laughs. Curtains."

Samson Isiah Jeross.

Christ! He's been noticed...

... Which isn't really that goddamn surprising when you're a firestar. Samson shook his head. Maybe tailing from the sky wasn't the best option, but he wasn't going to give up easily. At this distance, nobody (... with binoculars) would have even have discerned his features. Just like Daddy told him, fail once, get back on your feet and try again! Samson quickly descended to the ground level, just like he practiced, the second he was a few feet off the ground, the fire disappeared and he was completely normal. He landed in some backwater ass alleyway. Hopefully no one noticed him, but he was going to get the hell out of there before anyone came to investigate. He scampered out of there, and adjusted his tie. Heh. No one would find anything wrong with a muscular black guy in a suit coming out of a alleyway, right? Samson fortunately had a good idea of what the girl looked like. All he had to do was follow her through the crowd. He stepped into the same crowd as Tara did, looking inconspicuous as possible. Tara didn't exactly fall under inconspicuous due to bum-rushing her way into the crowd to hider. All Samson had to do was find her... If there's a Skull, they're bound to have a bike somewhere....

Reiko Silas Ain.

What was this woman's goal, truly?

Prove herself as a proud warrior through words? Not an effective tactic. No. Not at all. Though, Reiko had to compliment how Mia was speaking to the Big Five like they were children. Her comments were amusing as they were bold. I wonder how long she's going to keep this going. Kylie, even drunken, is most likely saying what is on the Skull's collective minds. If only Reiko was a little closer... and if only the Jolly Roger didn't reek of fermented piss. She could read this woman better, but she was restricted to visuals. Bah. There was that faint odor of dried blood, almost enticing, on the woman. Carrying on, Big Boss Skeleton decided to step up and say something to Mia. He was probably handling this woman better than anyone else. Better than Kylie, better than that fool Zorich. He believes he know what she wants, she wants to be a Skull... Eh. She thought he was being a little hasty. Mia only walked into the bar shit-talking everyone. He offered her a simple test - It seemed to be the usual. Beat up some cops, prove that you're a real "big man", and join the Skulls in more worthless drunken revelry. Big woop... She rolled her eyes. Reiko merely looked on dryly, occasionally taking some sips from her wine, hoping for some resolution. However, when her name was brought up...

Reiko suffered a small lapse of control, as she described it. A burst of raw irritation and anger that caused her to crush her wine glass in her palm. Causing the loud, but brief, cracking of air to fill the room. What was left of her wine spilled on the floor, mixed with some of Reiko's blood. Her brows were furled, and eyes were shot open with anger.

God dammit. Why the hell does she, out of all the faceless fools in here, have to put her body on the line to test another Skull? Skeleton had Titus for that, and it's a miracle that fool even got in. That bastard... She let out a quiet sigh. No, she must remain in control. Of herself, and her emotions. This was a small slip that she should have long stopped doing. You are a Huntress, not a child, and you're proud of it. She found herself staring at her hand, there were glass shards and wine in her wounds. These wounds were already healing, the glass was being pushed out. It stung like hell, yes. But was it something she hasn't experienced before? No. She survived worse. As she stared at her hand.... Hmph, funny. Reiko's own nose was now being flooded with the familiar iron scent of fresh blood. At least the blood didn't flow for long. Her regenerative abilities had already clotted the blood, and not another drop came out of the wounds. It would all be gone in a few minutes.

Now she was the elegant predator everyone thought her out to be. Calm and collected. Mature as a fine wine. "... Skeleton, with all due respect," Reiko started off, "There are a million dispensable fools in here you could get for your trial, why does it have to be me?"

Mia Jones

She handled the incoming comments cooly. While idiocy and snide remarks was something to warrant reciprocation, threats were easily set aside. They weren't anything that she ought to be making light of by agitating them further, but neither were they words that'd instill any sort of fear or trepidation in her. Between the sound of a young woman's warning and the cocky bastard who Mia had assumed was twirling the cute little switchblade, she remained silent and focused on the gruff man. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other and leaned on her metal cane, straining her ears to hear what else this “Skeleton” fellow had to say.

To be perfectly honest, it was quite predictable.

But she had expected something only slightly different, like punching an old lady or shooting a cop. But no, buster here opted to send one of his own to test her. A woman named Reiko – a peculiar name – was to test her mettle. To see if she had what it takes. Was Reiko tall? Strong? Old or young? It wouldn't be a challenge if this Reiko girl wasn't capable of fighting back. For all intents and purposes, it might be best to assume she had a little bit of somethin'-somethin' to back up Skelly's trust.

Or maybe they weren't half the shit everybody thought they were. Even Reiko's voice sounded hesitant.

“Just the one? You're quite sure about that?” Mia shot back nonchalantly. She exhaled deeply and combed hand back through her hair. “Alright, fine by me. Let's get this over with.”

Mia didn't wait to turn around and hold open the door she came through, waiting for the woman whose ass she had to beat in order to impress these goons. If anything, she was half tempted to offer him to throw in a couple more of his boys just to even the odds. She had to admit – she almost laughed to herself at Reiko's complaint. Apparently she isn't as indispensable as she likes to think.

- - - - - - - - - -

Baron Moreau

The news, if anything, seemed to startle is old associate. On the other hand, Baron was taking it all in unearthly stride. In fact, he was mostly curious. He didn't know the nature of the gangs in this town, but if these guys were worth even half as much as the locals feared them, then perhaps they were serious business. Maybe they won't let John Frost's death go unavenged. Ivan was a hardened soldier and Baron knew that. Sure, the man has aged a couple years, but he was fairly confident that Belroth would welcome their old explosives expert back with open arms. With less time shooting people.

Just the fact that Ivan appeared so troubled was enough of an indicator. He was going through a check-list, it looked like.

“Doctor Tobias Wright.”

Baron looked over and saw Ivan's companion, who had extended his hand. It was covered in suction cups and appeared clammy. A brief half of a second of quiet contemplation with a straight poker face prior to the moment Baron steeled his nerves for the handshake. Yep. Felt just as weird as he expected. He didn't let on to his emotions and he kept a straight face: a friendly smile. That was all this situation would warrant.

“Baron Moreau.” He replied. When the server came along, Baron met her with a warm smile. Raised, piqued brows, a smile flushing either cheek and dimples on the side of his face. “No thank you, darlin'. I supply my own vintage.”

“Professor of genetics at Mendel University and Ivan's co-worker.” Toby continued.

“Psychologist.” Baron explained. “I've got work experience in medical, criminal and domestic fields - I never really left the Dreads, I suspect that Roket here told you just a little about it.”

Baron glanced at his old explosives specialist. He sure hope he told just a little about them. Speaking of who...

“So, he's a co-worker?” He asked inquisitively. “I don't recall him going into genetics. Mostly, he just...” Baron made a slow and dramatic display with his hands, expanding his hands, “made things go boom... I mean, hell, he stopped them from doing that too sometimes, but that's a different kind of adrenaline rush.”