::Not enough. Yeah, let's talk. They haven't found you yet. You want the lights out to cover your escape?::
::Those two are suggesting we all talk elsewhere. You up for that?::
As long as it's just talk, yeah. Someplace discreet, no coffee shops, no scaredy cops. There's a $1 theatre, it's usually about half-empty this time of day, especially if you buy a ticket for the real stinker films.
I can't see what's going on, so I hope you know your directions. Ghost-girl, the guy you're with wants you to go to the outside of the door you were first in::
::They think they can get out on their own; don't kill the power unless I say. We'll meet them two buildings down::
Gothic passes along the message, then wanders a bit down the street, still staring at her phone.
SCENE 11 - at the Matador
Scene 11
Levi pulls Trevor over and up to bring them out of the ground on the other side of the loading door, releasing Trevor after determining it to be clear and safe to do so.
SCENE 11 - at the Matador
Levi guides Trevor along the foundation of the bar and follows the back wall to the back door.
Katie sees Levi emerge.
Katie snaps a picture of the two half-way out of the concrete. Man that's freaky...
Gothic keeps walking after sending a message to the others. ::Dollar theater, then::
Now that the tension had passed, the chill of the afternoon started catching up to her and she shivered as she pulled her jacket tight against her. She walked alone but aware of the others who followed her to the old movie house.
She fishes out a couple of wadded bills and coins from her pocket and drops it in front of the bored woman at the box office, then ticket stub in hand goes inside to warm up.
"Let's get going [to the theater]." Levi says letting Trevor go and her ghost form as well.
Katie goes ahead, cross-city, on the roof tops and buys a ticket to the next show to start. She grabs a seat to either one side or to the back, depending on how many people are at the theatre in the early afternoon.
SCENE 12 - at the dollar theater
Everyone arrives at the dollar theater.
Gothic walks past the concessions, through the stale smell from the popcorn popped the day before and bagged overnight. She moves into the theater, chooses an empty row and drops into one of the seats, its ancient hinges groaning in protest. Propping her feet up against the seat in front of her, she pulls out a stick of gum, noisily unwrap it, and pops it in her mouth.
Well, we're here. I assume you know what we look like. If not, I'm the massive bald guy. She's the one wearing blankets.
Trevor buys a lemonade and goes to sit down inside.
The goth girl snaps her gum and juts a thumb in the direction of the one with the weird face paint.
::She called this meeting::
Katie tosses some popcorn at Gothic, bouncing a couple of pieces off her phone. She does the same to the bald guy and the woman with the blankets when she comes in.
Levi sitting next to Trevor 'So what's she want to talk about? The bad popcorn?'
She glowers at Katie once, then stares back up at the screen.
::You'll have to ask her yourself::
Well, somebody has to use their words here.
Trevor glances about within the theater, if there are other people about he moves closer to the two newcomers to keep his voice under the movie's volume.
We clearly have enemies in common. They seem to be simultaneously a satanic cult, a paramilitary outfit, and a biker gang. Everyone put their cards on the table.
SCENE 12 - at the dollar theater
The theater appears empty except for the potential heroes.
Katie shrugs at Gothic's glare. "Words are fine, freaky Goth girl gets pissy if you use them though. So I was waiting for someone to do so. You guys seriously need to quit being all freaky in public like that. Doing a ghost fade on a public street..." She says, shaking her head. "Never knew there were this meany freaks in Chicago. Maybe we should start a support group... or a union or something. Anyway, last time I 'shared' the a#!@%$# got scared and ran off. Scaredy cop. Yo, Gothy, you got a tablet... I need to send you a link... What's your IM?"
Looking irritated, Gothic sends a text with the information to the number Katie provided earlier. Her smartphone is current-gen and has a big screen, but it's not a tablet.
Katie shrugs at Gothic's glare again. "See, she's always pissed." She fires off a link from GenericGirl112 to Gothic, leading to a drop box with a bunch of pictures. The pictures are high res, showing white boards, pictures of people, like a bearded man, gang members, locations, clubs, and other things. The white board has names and other things, most not flattering, of the picture targets. "Baldy and Fadegirl aren't on the board yet, but that's what I know for now. Showed it to ScaredyCop, and he ran off after seeing a dozen gangers ripped apart, literally, in this bar..." She shows the bar in question, police tape on the door. "Rumor is they played kick ball with the ganger's heads after ripping them off. I heard one street thug talking about it looking like someone painted the walls with blood and guts. That's the guy you morons were about to say 'Hi' to in the bar. Like I told Gothy, good way to get every bystander in the area killed with collateral damage. And he's not going to be slowed down by a wall for long if you ghosty through it. The redhead is someone Gothy was following, I think. Maybe. Or Scaredy Cop, one of the two. Beard is taking over the drug trade around here, and killing off gangs. Can't say the killing of gangs is all that big an issue, but he doesn't mind killing witnesses either, which is a major problem."
"Cards out on the table? Swiftgarde is an ex employer of mine with a dark side. They are supplying personnel and real estate, at a minimum, to facilitate the pills your Bearded man is pushing. Though Skygarde probably has more finesse than kicking heads around though they definitely wouldn't place themselves above it if it helped their agenda or 'shareholders'."
Trevor scratches his chin.
I conveniently stopped a bank robbery involving several individuals that looked, well, like monsters. Horns, skin that looks like burning metal, a guy who was about 10 feet tall, and they all had abilities too. They were sent there by an odd man who was in a wheelchair who had the ability to drive people insane by touching them. Certainly sounds related to the sorts who do decapitated kickball, but they were trying to spread chaos and disarray for its own sake, drug running doesn't make much sense.
He stretches.
So it seems reasonable to assume that this Skygarde group is pushing things about, if we assume they get more and more orderly as the ranks go up. Given that, our ultimate goal should be their removal. Finding them can be a bit of a problem, but since someone can read minds it seems the easiest thing to do would be to simply isolate one of the grunts and ask him nicely.
After a long sip of his lemonade, he asks:
So, we know what she can do and what she can do he says gesturing to Levi and Gothic I break things and don't break easily myself, so what about you? he gestures to Kestral.
Katie puts a piece of popcorn on her palm, and 'thumps' it with a flick the finger from her other hand. The popcorn fires off like a rocket, bounces off Trevor's nose, ricochets off Levi's forehead, glances off Gothic's phone, and then hits the center of the theatre screen before rebounding to the floor. "I'm really good at flicking things..." She says. "Oh, and I'm decent enough at parkour. And I put a crap-ton of thought into things before I do them."
After a silent pause where Gothic continues to scowl, finally everyone hears in their heads, ::The redhead's a friend of mine. She has abilities too. She tried to recruit me, but wouldn't tell me anything about them::
SCENE 12 - at the dollar theater
Trevor perks up, having an idea.
Well we definitely have the means to sneak in and probably the expertise over different parts of the operation to figure things out even without having to interrogate anyone, so let's go back and head in.
Gothic arches an eyebrow at the idea. Then she glances over at Katie to watch her reaction to the suggestion.
Katie blinks. "So uhm, what part of 'collateral damage' did you not understand." She sighs. "Let's try another tactic. He threw a knife at me and missed, the knife landed halfway through an engine block of an SUV four blocks away and sent a mother and her kids careening into a brick wall... because the SUV jumped three feet sideways. Now imagine how much damage him throwing a brick wall will do, even if it's a small one, and missing?" She shakes her head. "We cannot engage him with people around, and we can't 'sneak into' any place where he is, while he's there. I'm not afraid of him, I'll go toe to toe with him, if I have to, but I'd prefer not to get 20 or 30 people dead in the process." She sighs. "If he leaves, great, happy to penetrate. I can work out my frustrations on his goons. If we can figure out where he's going and it's like a warehouse at 2AM with nobody around, I'll be happy to help you break his skull open so he can't hurt anyone. But as long as there's apartments within a hundred feet of him, there's too many bystanders."
Turning to Goth, Katie looks questioning. "What kind of powers does your friend have? What did she want to recruit you for?"
Turning back to Levi, Katie looks throughtful. "Why would this 'swift guard' bother dealing with low life scum like Beard? It seems like a pretty plebian thing for some secret organization to get into. Like those Hydra freaks? I don't deal with international organizations of evil, I deal with nutjob drug goons on the street corner. If you got some shadowy secret organization, that sounds like a Cap problem, not a Kestral problem..."
Turning to Goth, Katie looks questioning. "What kind of powers does your friend have? What did she want to recruit you for?"
::Her powers, her secret. But she wanted me to work for whoever she's working for. Being her backup. I was hoping to find out more about them by watching Beard::
Levi shifts in her seat a bit impatiently, "Swiftguard have been known to contract powered individuals for their agendas but to what purpose this time I don't know. I've been spending the better part of my time looking for an opportunity to find out and this could be a good opportunity."
"But let me get this straight, you aren't afraid of Beard, but as long as he is in Chicago you won't confront him because he is too much for you or anyone to contain. So we should just let him go on killing everyone and anyone he wants to then, because he's too dangerous? I don't like how that sits at all."
Oh yeah right. Last time I tried to fight I was almost swiss cheese.
Trevor raises his hands.
Regardless, I wasn't looking to fight anyone anyway. She he points to Levi makes us able to walk through walls and fly (slowly) and she he points to Gothic can find where the people actually are. Beard doesn't strike me as the brightest around, but I doubt he doesn't have thoughts in his head at all. We'll simply avoid him.
Katie shrugs at Gothic. "Your friend, your secrets, but if she comes on hostile, I'm not going to hold back. If I knew what she could do, I might be able to disable her. Not knowing, I'm going to have to go for take down." She turns to Levi. "I have no control over what he chooses to do to gang bangers or innocent bystanders. But I do have control over when and where I choose to go after him. That makes me at least as responsible for any bystanders that get hurt if I choose to take him down in a target rich environment. I have no qualms killing him if that's what it takes, but I will not put people who don't deserve it in harms way just to do it. If he chooses to go bug nuts and pulla Hulk, I'll make a different decision. But until then, I'm not going to provoke a fight that could turn a three block radius into a war zone." She looks Levi in the eye. "Have you seen people who've had a mother or son or baby killed? Have you looked them in the eye? Ever had to watch a 10 year old's face as they described their mother's blood fountaining through the air? Until you do, I suggest you think long and hard about who can get hurt if you don't pick your battlegrounds carefully."
Kestral looks like she's barely maintaining control for a moment, but finally flings a few popcorn kernals and knocks out a couple of baseboard lights with them and seems to calm down.
Turning to Trevor. "I got no issues with Gothy here rummaging around in his mind like a Raccoon in a Garbage Can. I just think sneaking around inside his place is a bad idea. Especially since it seems like you two aren't very good at being.. you know... stealthy? The whole making people scream on the street? You realize he'll have heard about that by now, and be expecting you next time?"
Gothic folds her arms and stays silent. Her eyes show irritation at Katie, though it might be that that is her usual expression.
Levi pulls down her hood to meet Katie's eyes with just as much determination, "Stop just a second, you just literally met me and you're presuming to know I haven't seen loss in people's eyes at the hands of murderers? You're way off mark. All that it takes for evil to win is for good men and women to do nothing, and that's what you're doing. You're so concerned your actions carry consequences, well guess what, watching and waiting carries consequences just as dire. I'm with muscles here, we should go in and ruffle their feathers. We might just come out of there with something useful that will explain why all these people are working together."
Katie shakes her head in exasperation. "You want to go in there and stir up a hornets nest, go ahead, I can't stop you. All I can do is stand back and try to minimize the carnage. Choosing not to endanger others is not 'doing nothing'."
Trevor steps in between Levi and Katie.
Please please please. Let's not fight. There's no need to kick the hornets yet, and we need to go inside anyway. There may be some physical evidence in there. Documents, memos, matchbooks from seedy hotels, that sort of thing, which we won't find from reading minds - to say nothing about the risk of interrogating the only guy in there who knows nothing - and we need to all go inside because we each have different connections to different parts of the whole group here. I'm the only one who will know what might be connected to the bank robbers, you're the only one who will know things connected to your friend, you're the only one who knows Swiftguard as an organization, and you're the only one familiar with this, er, Beard's previous operations. We have a common enemy and even if we don't like it right now, it looks like all of us are in over our heads.
He turns and faces Katie head-on, grinning slightly, but still looking somewhat defeated by a lack of options.
I'm open to other suggestions, but I don't see any better options.
Katie sighs. "Ok, look, I had an idea of how to get him out of there weeks ago, but it didn't do me any good. But maybe that's changed. Beard is a biker, he loves, you guessed it, his bike. Now, I had two ideas on the bike, one was to put a bomb on it and blow the bomb when he was away from people. Not sure if that would kill him or not, but at least it'd tick him off. The other idea was, to just damage it where it couldn't be ridden. But that only moves him, it doesn't get him away from people. His mechanic's shop is in a residential area, kids around, that sort of thing." She shrugs. "But, if Gothy can rape his mind without him knowing it, then we smash his bike, he'll take it to the mechanic, and we can search the building with him gone, and not provoke a big fight with him there."
"You want him to leave the bar before going into it, that's super clear, so lets start there. Where is his bike at right now?"
"In the alley next to the bar, with a tarp over it to protect it from the weather." She looks up at the ceiling. "Be a shame if the satellite dish on the corner of the bar's building broke off and landed on it... say because the bricks it's bolted into cracked..."
"Do you think the sound will be enough to rouse Beard's suspicion?"
"Well, I'd have to make a lot of noise. He said he's strong, if he's strong, he could use a chisel with his hand to crack the bricks, then drop it on top of his bike. That's quieter than I could do it by blowing up part of the wall..." She says, looking at Trevor...
The goth girl looks entirely disengaged from the conversation at this point, having pulled up a mindless game app on her phone and appears focused on it.
[Dice=Actually "listening" for anyone paying attention to the conversation]2d6[/dice]
[Dice=Actually "listening" for anyone paying attention to the conversation]2d6 1d6
Nope. Just you would-be heroes.