As Blake managed to get to his elbows from the ground, he watched as Felix, who had managed to catch up to the lizard man, put the massive creature in a growl. Blake couldn't help but be impressed at the other fire user as he wrestled a creature two feet taller than he was. It was almost scary. Blake might have dominion over the fire territory, but he was definitely scared to take on Felix in an arm wrestle.
Note to self, hit the gym some more after this is over. He knew he probably spent too much time in the gym as is, but watching his co-workers brutally take down a giant lizard was a catalyst for more exercise for sure.
He stood and rushed over, flinching as Jamie decided to drop a tree on the creature. Her gamble paid off, as the heavy oak tree toppled and over soared down towards the collared
(wait. Collared?) Iguanosaur. The falling tree caught the Iguanosaur across the back and crushed it to the ground, with the weight of the tree keeping it pinned there. Some of the branches probably smashed Felix over the head, but Blake was not concerned about that at all. Felix had definitely had much worse scrapes. What he
was concerned about was something he failed to notice before, as the creature's neck had been covered by its weird flappy neck things. A
collar. That was highly unusual. Blake was not exactly a Leftover expert, but he had seen enough of the mutant creatures to know that they were brainless wild animals that were not going to put a collar on themselves. The fact that it was wearing a collar meant somebody was trying to control it or something like that. That was very weird.
As soon as the tree had pinned the creature down, Blake promptly yelled,
"STOP! Don't kill it! Don't kill it!" as he ran over to the creature, whose torso was pinned down underneath a tree, all its bones probably shattered, as it moaned and struggled. Blake would feel bad for it if it wasn't a mindless dinosaur hybrid that was on a warpath and also threw him into the ground and gave him an annoying cut on his shoulder.
Blake knelt down next to the creature's head, reaching down towards the collar. It was very fancy, not just a dog collar. It looked like one of those Division X murder collars Blake had, unfortunately, grown familiar with on
multiple occasions. Unfortunately, it seemed welded on, but Blake had a perfect answer to that. He pointed two fingers at a metal area that seemed to have no technology or gadgets around it and promptly sent a hot flame into it. The fire, after a few moments of concentration, melted through enough that Blake was able to snap the collar off. He stepped back, holding the collar in his hand.
"You can kill it now," Blake said as he examined the collar.
It indeed looked similar to the one he had been forced to wear on multiple occasions
(still not happy) with some modifications on it. Imprinted on the side were the letters "GUGL," maybe some sort of weird company? Maybe the creature was being enslaved by Google? Ooh, that would be the catch of the century. Blake would get so much money. His dad was always taking about how Google was evil, anyway, and that according to some podcast he was listening to, was part of a globalist conspiracy. Blake did not know anything about politics or globalism, partially because those were things his dad talked about, and he did not want to become his dad. However, maybe his old man was right after all. There was only one way to find out, and this collar looked like it would be key. Unfortunately, Blake did not know how to reverse engineer murder collars.
Fortunately, he knew somebody he was pretty sure would be able to.
Blake took out his phone, finding Rumi in his contacts and calling the number. He put the phone on speaker, holding the collar in one hand and the phone up so everybody could hear in the other, as it rang.
"Hey, uhh, Rumi? This is Blake. I need you to analyze a...collar thingy." Blake looked down at the collar. 'Collar thingy' was accurate, he supposed.
"Should we, uhh, stop by your lab or something?"@Ryteb Pymeroce@canaryrose@Scarifar
"Well, then, I'll meet you in a few after I win big." He blew Patricia (or, as he knew her,
sugar plum) a kiss before walking back to his poker game, inevitably to lose big.
Grace, who was sitting on a barstool, enjoying a (ginger) ale as she watched the group get together. As they began to talk, she put one hand on the stool to stabilize herself before hopping a few times over towards the rest of the gang as they spoke, now positioned right behind Patricia. Unfortunately, in an abundance of caution, Patricia's tone was whispered to the point that even Grace, right next to her, was having trouble hearing, but her ears were able to pick up a few key aspects. Most notably, there was some sort of mob meeting going on that they were trying to infiltrate. Well, "infiltrate" was practically Grace's middle name (Grace didn't really
have a middle name, actually; she probably could make it "infiltrate" if she wanted to), and years of working to subvert the Yakuza in Japan had taught her a few things about mob families and their usual strategies. It was obvious, however, that Grace's interference would be unwelcome.
Of course, that sentiment did not stop her in the slightest, as Grace peered her head in over Patricia. Her features and violet hair were probably familiar to Brie and Tom, but she couldn't say the same about the third girl.
"I heard something about a mob meeting, and I want in," she said plainly, her voice soft enough to be secretive but loud enough to be heard by the Infiltration Crew.
"I can help move you guys around faster than they can move themselves around. And get everybody else into hidden places. And hide you guys really quickly if I need to. And other hidden talents." She looked around, analyzing their faces of what was likely displeasure.
"I know next to nothing about American mobsters, but I've dealt with the Yakuza before, and they're no joke. And most of them don't even have powers, so these guys are probably worse. You're going to need help, and I have experience." She might have come off a bit haughty there, but in her eyes it was true, and she hoped the others felt the smae- the Guglianos were most certainly no joke, and Grace had experience in attempting to dismantle criminal regimes in the path. Moving to address the elephant in the room, she added quickly,
"And I won't blab. To anybody. HERO, ICOSA. I swear on my grandmother's grave. Maengsehabnida. Err, that means I promise." She held up her crossed fingers.
"I won't even do any infiltrating. I'll just...chauffeur you around. Through time and space. Unless they can teleport large groups of people around, we'll always be one step ahead. Deal?" She examined them again, gauging their support. Hopefully, her modestly impassioned speech was enough to sway them.
@canaryrose@Danvers@Amethyst@KaijuBaragon
Not long after Will had been left to stew in the holding room, the door squeaked as it slowly opened again, but instead of a mafioso entering, a young girl did. The young girl closed the door behind her, her eyes inspecting Will.
The girl, on first glance, looked actually fairly similar to Patricia. The two could probably pass as sisters, or at the very least cousins. She was young, late teens, perhaps, something unusual in hero work, which was dominated mostly by adults. She stood at similar height, with the girl clocking around 5'5", and she had a fit but feminine build. She had wavy, dark hair, almost black color, that fell in waves down about her chest area. She had fair, almost pale skin. But most notably different was her eyes- they had a similar red color to that of Blake's, something rare, but hers were a very scary crimson color, unnaturally red and watchful. She would've been considered quite pretty under normal circumstances, but there was something odd, unnerving, about her that was rather offputting.
On her shoulder, perched there like a parrot, was a strange creature, small, blue in color with a single large golden eye and a small, toothy mouth, along with two bat-like wings. A Spectator, a rare Leftover creature, that most heroes didn't even know about because of this. The creature sat waiting on the girl's shoulder as she continued to look at Will, a smile on her face. After a moment of silence, she spoke up-
"You are. So. Adorable!" She giggled for a moment, before stopping herself.
"Sorry, I'm just used to kidnapped heroes being old, ugly guys. Normally fat, too. But you're not! That's pretty neat." She squatted down next to him.
"Well, nice to meet you. I'm Katharine Graves, or Kathy, but you might know me as Malady." After a moment of thinking, she frowned.
"You probably don't know me, actually. Papa has made sure to keep me off of HERO's radar for now. But he told me that if they did know me, I would almost be S tier? Pretty neat, huh?" She giggled again. There was something
very off-putting about this girl.
"Anyway, I'm supposed to be torturing the other heroes right now, but that's soooo boring. They don't even fight anymore, they just spill their guts whenever I get close to them. Hopefully you do a little better!" She tapped him on the forehead with a gentle flick.
"So, if you have any questions, you should ask them now! I probably shouldn't answer any, but there's no fun in that, now, right? She beamed at him, her smile adorable but also strangely off-putting.
There was definitely something very, very wrong about this girl.
@Infinite Cosmos
