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SphincterSphinx
Quest Abandoner
Sir Lurksalot
op2024
Noctis
Alfhedil
ScreenAcne
Sharmat
AlteredTundra
Lemons
Reyna Baker, Auri Auclair, Arianna, & Archie Davis.
Written in collaboration with @Mr Allen J@JunkMail@SepticGentlemanSilver Hills, Strong Gold Community.
Everything was falling into place, for Ari.
Ari had gotten a taxi to her destination, as the only car she had was stolen (and she was fairly certain that there would be RAVEN operatives on-site). And now, she was meeting up with the Spider Society, and namely- Auri.
"This celebration is excellent, wouldn't you say, sister?"
Lillian of the Croquetaigne sisters spoke to her twin sister in French. They were in the VIP area, as expected of people of such importance as the White Spider Society. Though, they were secluded from the rest of the group. Too many people were too "proud" to even associate with.
Even though many of the people here are clients.
"Yes, it is." Viollette tapped glasses with Lillian, and the two sipped their wine. With their tall, bodyguard, standing over them with her arms crossed. Jasmine Lloyd. One of the Metahumans who were attacked by the Pure during the nonsense. Now their loyal bodyguard.
Loyal as money could buy, of course.
"Say," Viollette started off. "Where is Miss Auclair at?"
Lillian threw a thumb towards the front entrance of the building, and softly spoke, "... She's "meeting a friend.""
Both sisters rolled their eyes.
Just as the Croquetainge sisters stated, Auri was waiting at the entrance of the nice house that Jiao-Long assigned for his VIP guests. It was great that Auri managed to get them in despite their... professions. Yet, everyone was throwing them funny looks. Auri herself was waiting for Ari to show up. Auri herself would be hard to miss wearing a fancy red dress that ended a bit above her knees. She had a golden necklace on with diamonds at the end. She omitted her glasses this time - choosing to wear contacts.
When Ari approached, there was an obvious difference in dress level. While Auri had a red dress, Ari wore a red skirt, and a strapless black top adjourned by a white blazer. She was already taller than Auri, but with black leggings and heels, she stood several inches taller than her friend.
"Sorry for the wait." Ari said, accentuating her accent for socialization's sake. "I hope you weren't waiting long."
"Only an hour." Auri said with a smile on her face. Obvious that she was joking. "Hurry, hurry, come in. The party's getting started!"
Ari smiled. Of course it was. She was just arriving.
"Lead the way, love."
Auri nodded her head, and nearly blushed at the love comment. However, she kept her composure, as she pivoted around on one foot, and started walking up the stairs. She opened the door, and stepped inside - holding it open for Ari.
"Thank you-" Ari said, moving through the doorway. She looked around the room, already seeing potential opportunities, but tore her eyes away from the patrons and returned them to Auri.
"If you have business to attend to, I can leave you to your enterprise." she said, shifting her weight onto one leg, and leaning out. "It's not like I can't meet you... after."
"Oh, of course." Auri said with a wide smile on her face. "It's not like we have to stick together like glue - go on, have your own fun." She laughed a little as she stepped off. She stopped as she looked over her shoulder at Ari, "But just don't get into any trouble, mon cheri."
Ari delicately placed her hand on her chest, with her fingers just grazing her collarbones.
"Me? Never."
So far, no George Burns had been sighted. Archie had been wandering about, waiting for Ari to pull something, or even just straight up grab him and lead him somewhere to wait for her while she pilfered. You just couldn't know with her.
"Excuse me, sir?"
Archie felt some tapping on his shoulder. He turned his attention to a RAVEN agent standing right behind him, in all the authority his black-colored armor was exuding. Was this Ari? It seemed risky to impersonate an agent, but he'd been surprised by her before. Oh well, best to just go with it. Archie paused for a moment before he proceeded to take out his phone and start typing. Agent obviously wasn't happy with this, as he stated a little more sternly, "Sir." Archie raised his free hand's finger, rather impolitely requesting the agent wait one moment. Seconds later, Archie raised his phone for the agent to read.
What seems to be the problem, officer?
The agent crossed his arms and continued. "Very funny." He said, "Why don't you take that bag off your head and use your words?" Some more typing, coupled with a shred of deviance, and Archie responded.
My long-term physical well-being requires that I keep it on my head at all times.
The agent nodded. "Ah. Meta, right? Part of your 'physical condition'?" He asked, "C'mon, how much would it really hurt?" Not the hundred percent phrasing Archie was hoping for, but close enough. More typing.
It would be extremely painful.
In his head, Archie was snickering like a five-year-old. The agent didn't seem to share in his amusement however. "I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad." He said, confident in his assumption. Again, not the proper phrasing, but Archie made due. This was the closest he was going to get to a moment like this without the other party being aware of what has actually happening. Archie paused for a moment, bracing himself as he typed in the coup de grace. Probably not a very good idea, but damn it, he was not a man to pass something like this up. He showed his phone to the agent once again.
4U.
He'd done it. Finally, after years of waiting for the opportune moment, he'd Bane'd someone in reality. He was honestly hoping it wasn't Ari at this point, else the the moment would have lost its charm. Archie keeled over slightly, pretending to laugh even though he lacked the appropriate orifice for it. The agent, however, was done with the game. He reached forward and grabbed Archie's mask, yanking it off of his head. Immediately, the light show sprung up for all the surrounding event-goers to see. Bright yellow bubbles floating about, like a walking lava lamp. People were definitely staring by now. The agent looked at Archie with a slight look of confusion as he paused, put his hands on his sides, and lightly tapped his foot. He proceeded to type one more word on his phone and show it to the agent.
Rude.
"Well, I don't see you choking to death." The agent replied, "Look, I got a report earlier from a civilian about a-"
Another RAVEN agent moved in, around the same height as the first. Male, tall, and imposing. Athletic build and facial hair to boot. He grabbed the first by the arm and pulled him away from Archie. "We have a situation on the eastern side of the building." He said, turning to face Archie, looking over the man for a moment before deeming that this situation played second-fiddle to the first. He pulled the mask out of the first agent's hand and tossed it to Archie.
"Sorry for the trouble, sir."
As the second agent pulled the first away, it didn't take Ari long to make her own appearance.
"You're welcome."
Archie took a moment to return his mask to its rightful place upon his cranium, the floating, viscous lights flowing into the opening as he brought it down to his collar and fastened the elastic. He immediately went back to his phone and began typing, before showing the screen to Ari.
Yeah, yeah. Where've you been? What's happening?
"Surveying, and making a distraction, to get you out of the shitter." Ari said, nodding in the direction that the previous agents had walked off in. Ari looked normal, or at least, what she normally looked like around him. She stood with her arms crossed and looked half amused, and half frustrated. "Have you put together what you think is the plan, or do I have to tell you?"
More typing followed.
I assume it involves a certain major pharmaceutical figure and his personal belongings. Other than that, I got nothing.
He was deleting these texts as soon as she was done reading them. Wasn't sending them to anyone either, just filling in the window and keeping his thumb away from the 'send' button. He was only this paranoid around her, it seemed.
Ari raised an eyebrow and seemed to think for a moment. "Drugs... brilliant idea! We'll get those too." She said in a low voice. She reached over and grabbed Archie, pulling him out of the main crowd. When they were for the most part situated, Ari grabbed him by the collar and began filling him in.
"Lots of people in here have jewelry. Wedding rings, gold bands, chains made of precious metals, wallets, purses..." Ari listed, catching herself going off on a tangent. She shook her head. "Lets just say that they'll be donating it to the Ari fund."
Very original. And I'm guessing Davis Personal Storage will be participating in this venture as well?
"We've been business partners for years." Ari said, grinning to him. She looked over her shoulder, and then back at Archie. "I'm going to go make a distraction. Stay in the building. I'll find you."
I can hardly wait for the chaos to ensue.
Ari pressed her hand to her lips and blew Archie a kiss before backing off into the crowd. He proceeded to tuck his phone away in his pocket and lean against a wall with his backpack at his side, getting right down to business by doing jack shit.
Times like this, he wished he could whistle.
"...And a bit of this... and a bit of that. Some of this, too..." Reyna was muttering to herself. She had a pair of tongs in her hand, filling up a plate in the other - all the while balancing another full plate on her left arm. She utterly intended treating herself with this buffet until she was set to burst. Potatoes, veggies like okra and peas, meats of all kinds, there was no restraint. To think that this Jiao-Long guy was just giving this all away, right? Right?
She didn't have to pay for any of this, right?
An issue to think about for another time. Now she had to think about balancing her meal to a nearby picnic table and go down on these savory, delicious, sons of bitches like she was payed to... thank God she didn't say that out loud.
Reyna procured her plastic cutlery and didn't hesitate a moment before digging in; the long road trip had built up her appetite, it was great to be welcomed with such a banquet.
Jackpot.
Across the room, there was a young woman who stuck out like a sore thumb. She had short hair, was around her height, and wore leather. She looked almost like a biker of sorts.
Ari excused herself to the nearest restroom and locked herself in to undergo binary fission. It was a simply, quick process. Similar to stepping in two different directions- but instead of falling or doing the splits, you literally split in two. The two copies stared at one another, and one of them warped, the blazer, skirt, shirt, and otherwise changing colors and reforming into clothing that matched the same style the woman at the table had- leather.
The leather-clad Ari ran her hand through her hair which lengthened like puddy into long black waves, and her lipstick changed from natural to a darker shade of red. She blinked and her eyes went from brown to blue. Her body structure changed from thin-athletic to a slightly more muscular shape, and her skin paled into a more porcelain-esque color. The copies, smiled at one another, and fist-bumped. Then the leather-clad Ari left the restroom, closing the door behind her so the original copy could remain.
So, now she had a target, and a disguise. Now to create the opportunity to rob everyone. Then it hit her.
The RAVEN agents.
Ari's copy rushed towards the general vicinity of her leather-clad target, and scouted the area for anyone in uniform.
Perfect. One of the men from before- the one that had bothered Archie.
Ari's copy waltzed up to the blonde-haired agent, and tapped the man on the shoulder. When he turned around, he very obviously looked her over. She smiled to him.
"I do like a man in uniform." She said, pursing her lips and making a slight popping sound at the end of the word 'uniform'. Her British accent gone. He looked over her shoulder, throwing her hair in an exaggerated fashion. She threw her hand up, motioning to the leather clad woman eating behind her with her thumb.
"My friend over there thinks you're way hot." she said, not taking her eyes off of the RAVEN agent. "Maybe if you're lucky she'll let me have some too, later." She said, giving him a bright smile.
The larger agent behind him, who had pulled him away from Archie pushed him towards Reyna. Ari briefly heard him say "Go for it, man!" as she walked away. Her smile dissolved into a smirk as she made her way back to the restroom. Easy as pie.
Reyna was doing well for herself in her mission to clear what was on her table, even going so far as muttering to herself a little nursery tune she used to sing for her sister. Taking a spoonful of peas and swallowing it down.
"Sittin' by the roadside on a summer day, chattin' with my classmates passing time away... lying in the shadows underneath the trees, goodness, how delicious eating goober peas..."
It was a silly song, needless to say. Merry liked it, though.
"Haven't heard that old song in quite some time..." Announced the voice of a large ham coming her way. It was one of the RAVENs lurking about.
Reyna slowly squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head out of embarrassment as she groaned, "Oh... God, no..."
"It goes back quiet a couple years, y'know." He said with a smirk.
"Yep." Reyna simply answered, still not looking at the agent in front of her. She just wished he would go away. "I'm sure you'd know all about that."
"Oh, ouch," the RAVEN replied, but was only amused, "I'm not that old! Still plenty young enough for you..."
Reyna paused, and made a confused expression from under her arms. She slowly raised her head up and looked at the man as though he caught the wrong person. "I'm sorry, just, who are you?"
"Agent Eddy Styles. What's yours, angel?" He said as he sat down on the picnic table in front of her. Reyna subtly pulled her food away from him and toward her in defense. Yeah, she had no idea who this bozo was, and needless to say, not her type. The confidence this guy was exuding was almost gross. Like the green Nickelodeon slime from the 2000's. She set her elbow on the table and propped up her chin with her hand.
"I don't date cops." Reyna casually said, ignoring his question.
"I ain't no cop," Styles purred, "I--"
"You're RAVEN, I know." Reyna interrupted, pointing at the insignia on the man's armor. "It doesn't make you better, though."
"That's not what your friend said." The agent retorted, becoming defensive in retaliation of Reyna's attitude.
Reyna looked at Agent Styles incredulously. "What? Okay, I'm new in town, I don't got any--"
"I can't believe this." The agent grumbled. "Look, you don't get to just lie the second you change your mind and feel like back-peddeling."
Reyna's face went from incredulous and gradually grew angry the more this agent in front of her spoke. She stood up, and set her hands on the table. "Excuse me?"
"You girls always change your mind. You don't know what you're missing."
"What, like you're some hot shit?" Reyna said to him, raising her voice. At this point, she had stood completely up, with one of her feet propped on the bench. She was leaned forward, as though ready to take a leap onto the RAVEN. The people immediately around her was quietly looking on as the argument got more heated. Even his comrades took noticed, and started making cautionary steps forward. He, however, just made a laugh.
"Come on, I'm an agent of RAVEN. Don't ya know who we are?" He boasted. "We kind of are badasses. Check this out..."
A small fireball erupted in his hand. This RAVEN, like many of the others, was a meta-human... and like many of the others, used their traits like weapons. He continued,"I'm even on the squad of the great Hero of Prague."
"I don't give a fuck if you're a Nigerian prince!" Reyna hollered as she threw her jacket down behind her. Her skin was already going red as her adrenaline picked up. "You'll be dickless if you don't fuck off back to your bromo boy band!"
"Come on..." Agent Styles smiled smugly. He was stretching his hands out, preparing to deal with this domestic issue. "Don't do this to yourself."
"Keep talking... and I am going to hurt you." Reyna growled. Her muscles were tight in her fists.
"Try it," he goaded as he leaned forward, "free shot."
Reyna didn't hesitate and immediately took the opportunity to wind back her arm and clocked him right in the nose hard enough to send him staggering backward. The crowd immediately backed away, and even the agent's comrades suddenly took the situation seriously. However, they did not intervene, but stay in standby, confident that
their comrade could handle the situation. Styles recoiled with his hand on his face, but kept his balance. He pulled his hand away, wiping some blood from his nose. He looked back at Reyna who was stepping over the picnic table toward him.
"Come on, pussy!" She yelled at him.
Styles recomposed himself, not yet going to resort to his firepower before his combat training. He took a couple deep breathes.
"I am giving you one chance to surrender now," he said, "before--"
He was answered with another swift jab coming towards him. He immediately shut up and batted her fist away - acknowledging her boxing stance mid-fight and swept his leg hoping to catch one of her feet so he could pin her down, but she reacted quickly by simply lifting her forward foot up and capitalized on his now poor stance by giving the agent a right hook to the left side of his head.
The whole trade moved so quickly it was only a couple seconds that Styles staggered again, having caught his footing once more. He was dazed, but still fine enough to see straight, and looked at Reyna, who was already taking deep breathes. Her skins was flushed, and beads of sweat layed on her skin. She was quick, but was that as hard as she could go? He felt that Reyna was giving it all she had straight from the start. That would be her mistake.
He charged her this time, making a wide punch. He felt if he could use his size and reach to his advantage, he could overwhelm the girl. What he did not expect to feel, however, was what felt like a metal bar hitting the inside of his elbow. Reyna blocked his punch with an incredible amount of force, and now close quarters, headbutt Styles in the nose and used her other arm to elbow him right in the chest. Styles was knocked back and out of breath, with both arm and face in pain. The agent growled in anger, and balls of fire erupted in both of his hands. Reyna marched toward him.
He answered her challenged in a bathe of fire, two small streams gushing out from his hands. The agent expected to see a woman who had forced his hand, blistered in severe burns, soon to be carried out by an emergency response team, and later, a pile of paperwork.
The agent didn't expect to see a flash of the woman before him in the middle of the stream, before a wrenching pain shot through his gut. The fires died down, and Reyna followed this blow with an uppercut to Styles' lower jaw. She pushed him to the ground and landed on his chest with her knees pinning his shoulders to the pavement. With both hands, she was whaling on his face, punch after punch. She yelled at him between each strike.
"Don't you! Ever fucking dare! Look at me! Or any other girl! Again! You fucking! Arrogant! Pig!"
She was just about to lay in the final blow and complete his facial makeover for good.
"... Alright, that's enough." Meifeng quickly caught Reyna's attention the best way she could. She sprayed Reyna with a splurt of water that would be no more threatening than a blast of water from a waterhose. It was ice cold, just to cool the little furnace down. The water, on contact, mostly sizzled, some of it instantly turning into steam, and what remained splashed on her face and ran down her body. The coldness was a shocking, if a touch refreshing feeling on Reyna. She looked up at the new person in front of her. It was built Asian girl, probably not much older than she was - cute were it not for the huge scars. There was Reyna, atop a pinned, unconscious RAVEN, slightly soaked, grabbing onto his collar, and a steady flow of steam was rising from her body.
As Reyna took deep, uneven breathes, looking at Meifeng, a glob of blood dripped from the bruised knuckles her raised fist.
The others had followed behind Meifeng. Baron looked down at the scene and his jaw dropped a bit. "My word..."
Meifeng was going to pin her down, but she felt the heat coming off the girl. She was about to spray her some more, when the other RAVENS finally got off their ass and came over to Reyna. Fortunately, a perk of the RAVEN armor was that it was pretty heat resistant, so they had no trouble with pinning Reyna to the ground, who had opted out of resisting for her own good, and put handcuffs on her. Reyna felt utterly frustrated here. She could take them, she knew she could, but this day already gone so far down the shitter it wasn't worth making it worse.
Why the RAVENs didn't do this earlier was anyone's guess.
"God damn it." Meifeng hissed under her breath as she looked around. "What the hell had happened here."
Lihua had one hand over Lijuan's eyes... she didn't need to see the mess that this redhaired girl had done to the agent. There was a unopened bottle of wine on a nearby table. The owners had long left, which meant they probably wouldn't mind if she pulls it open. She downed a little bit of the red wine, wiping her mouth off with her sleeve.
"... Who the hell let this street rat in here anyway?" Lihua said loud enough for Reyna to hear. "I thought this was VIP... unless brother's security is really that bad." She chuckled a little bit.
"Can't ever trust a RAVEN to do their job right." Reyna called from the ground, faced away from the group. She didn't want to see their stares. She would sit up if she could, only if there weren't two meatheads who were still pushing down on her.
"Okay, what the hell happened here?" Cindy's heels loudly clicked on the ground as she walked into the building. She heard there was a fight going on, and she immediately came fast as she could. She looked around, and saw an unconscious RAVEN, and a twenty-something girl being carted off by RAVENS... She definitely didn't look like a baseline human.
"Wait, hold on." Cindy asked as she reached for her belt. Pulling out a scanner the size (and shape) of a smartphone. She walked over to Reyna, and then knelt down (Which was hard given the heat she was giving off), and ran the device over her skin, and pressed the button.
The machine buzzed red, and Cindy raised an eyebrow.
"She isn't registered." Cindy announced as she put the device back on her belt.
"Good work, Hitler..." Reyna quietly mumbled. The RAVEN on top of her pushed down a bit more, and a bit of sand from the pavement pushed its way into her mouth.
"Erhem..." Jiao-Long said as he took steps towards the DOVE, with his hands folded behind his back, hunched over somewhat. He and Lihua exchanged looks before the man focused on Cindy. "From what my guests say... the RAVEN was harassing the girl for a date and it escalated into a fight." He shrugged. "I was in another room, so I can't tell you what happened from my, ah, perspective."
Cindy immediately facepalmed.
"God damn it...." Cindy groaned. "Not only do we got idiot-one here finding it hard to keep it in his pants, but we got idiot-two here assaulting an officer, unregistered, in a place she shouldn't have even been in the first place."
Cindy shook her head as she pointed towards the RAVENS.
"... Get her out of here, and into a cell." Cindy ordered, and the RAVENS lifted Reyna up, and started carting her off. Reyna couldn't help but have a half-hearted smile. "You can always count on a RAVEN treating their power like a gun," she muttered quietly.
Baron was close enough in ear-shot to hear the words Reyna spoke, but said nothing, only scratching the bottom of his chin. He looked to his side to see Cindy who looked down at the unconscious agent, and knelt down before him, and started looking at his wounds.
"... And someone get him to a hospital for cryin' out loud."
Baron knelt beside Cindy, also taking a look at Agent Styles' face. He brows lowered and eyes widened as he looked to Cindy. "Low velocity splatters, all blunt trauma... and burns? She did all that with just her hands?"
"I gauge that she must be a Super-System type - likely Elemental as well, dealing with heat or fire." Cindy thought out loud. "Either way, we're going to figure out just what she can do in the morning... Maybe a night in a cell will cool her down." She said, irritated.
"In any case, this agent," Baron said urgently, "his breathing is erratic and there's a steady, but slow flow of blood from his mouth. He does have lung damage, likely from a snapped rib, we need to handle him carefully to avoid making his condition worse. As for the woman..."
Baron sighed. "She might need attention too. She may not feel it now, but... she broke at least one bone through his armor."
"She might have durability. I don't know, but it's likely." Cindy answered. "Medics will check once she gets back to base."
Baron smiled as he hung his head low. He stood back up. "I understand, I'm sorry. I used to do this sort of thing all the time. Some habits are hard to break."
Lihua sighed.
"Well, isn't this interesting?" Lihua asked rhetorically. "I didn't expect a street rat to defeat a mighty RAVEN... heh....." Lihua laughed after she heard the damage done to the man.
Baron shrugged. He figured Lihua would know the meta-human scene better than he did, even so, even Baron could acknowledge that some powers were more potent in some respects than others, others more fit for combat, others simply - straight up - more powerful, regardless of experience. In Lihua's case, seven years ago, she was defeated by a man who was disabled on his first tour and was only a newly indoctrinated meta. But that was ancient history, he was still caught up in the young woman's parting words. It was... material that he could work with.
"Be quiet, mom." Meifeng ordered, irritated as she rolled her eyes up into her head. First day back, and a fellow squadmate gets into a fight with a girl. Now, said girl's probably going to see the inside of a cell for a long time.
Though, at the corner of her eyes, she spotted something odd. Another little sparrow made out of ice. It was resting on the chandelier. Meifeng did a hop as she managed to catch the bird with her ice manipulation. She held it with both hands, as it tried to flutter away. This time it didn't melt.
"Hey Cindy," Meifeng said to catch her attention. "What do you think of this?"
Cindy, who was annoyed as is, quickly walked over, and raised an eyebrow.
"The hell is that?" Cindy asked.
"I don't know, but-"
"Actually," Cindy ignored the bird, as she finally realized just who she was talking to. She stared Meifeng right in the eye. "I can't believe you went off grid for like - five months - without saying a word to anyone. What the hell where you doing?"
Meifeng crossed her arms as she rolled her eyes up into her head.
"Yeah, yeah..." Meifeng groaned.
"... This is going to be one loooong night."