Maxx

City of Gold OOC

(quick post just to move two plotlines along)

Skeleton and Damian

When Reiko went down, Skeleton realized his mistake. Immediately he sprang into action, running towards the fight and shoving Mia out of the way. He bent down over Reiko, his masked face devoid of emotion but his real one in a concerned frown. Damian hurried over and crouched down at his side.

"Son of a bitch." he said "I told you this was a bad idea, Skull-for-brains."

"I know that now." Skeleton replied as he stood up "Antonio!" he bellowed before turning to Mia "Impressive." he said "I underestimated you."

"God dammit." Damian muttered "Reiko, are you okay?"

Ivan and Dr.Wright

Ivan took another drink of his beer.

"What do you say, Tobes?" Ivan asked his friend "Do you want to help me show him around some?" Dr.Wright ate the last of the fish strips and put a tentacle where a chin would be on a normal human, as if in thought.

"Sure, why not." he said "Might as well get out of here." He got up and went for the door. A minute or two later, they were standing outside under the green awning. A light rain fell across the road, reflecting in beams of light and dancing in the puddles. Ivan walked to his car and produced a rather large black umbrella which Dr.Wright held over them as they began to walk down the sidewalk, damp with newly-fallen rain.

"So what do you want to see?" Ivan asked him as they stopped at the corner. A pretty-looking Thunderbird caught the corner of his eye. Whoever drove that must be really lucky.

City of Gold OOC

Thrice*

City of Gold OOC

Post so nice, I posted it twice.

City of Gold OOC

Titus, Whisper, and Emilio

Titus, caught off guard by the sudden attack of the angry bar stools, flew through the air, through the glass storefront of the bar, and was sent sailing into the elevator shaft. He plummeted ten floors before crashing through the roof of the elevator. He hit the elevator floor with a loud "bang!" that echoed through the elevator shaft and laid still, a puddle of blood forming in the dent he made in the floor. He groaned and muttered something inaudible with a broken jaw before the elevator began to go down. Luckily, no one was inside. Emilio walked over to the edge of the shaft and, looking down, shouted "Team Rocket's blasting off again!" Whisper appeared next to him a moment later.

"You're an ass." she said, smirking.

"The one and only." he replied. Emilio turned back towards the bar and walked up to the counter, where he shouted "all clear!" The manager exited the kitchen first, gun in hand.

"So sorry about the damage." Emilio said "We will, of course, pay for its repair in full." The manager scowled and leveled the gun at Emilio's chest.

"I have called the police." the manager said "Now get the hell out of my restaurant." Emilio frowned.

"Now why would you do that?" Emilio replied "We had the situation under con-"

"Out. Now." The manager said. The bartender gasped as Whisper appeared behind the manager, knife in hand.

"Very well." Emilio said. Whisper drove down with the knife and cut the barrel of the gun off before grabbing the manager by the back of his head and shoving him into the marble barcounter. He groaned and fell to the ground, a large gash on his forehead that trickled blood onto the floor. She climbed up onto the bar counter.

"Lets go." she said "We're not welcome here anymore." Whisper vanished once more and drifted towards the door in a cloud of smoke. Taylor got up from under the bar counter and looked around cautiously. It seemed safe now, so she began to make her way towards the door, looking over her shoulder for attackers. She was getting the hell out of here and back home where there weren't killer monsters sitting all around her. Maybe she'd head to Jazzy's and get some coffee; they made great cappucinos, she heard. She walked over to the elevators and hit the up button on the one that wasn't currently occupied by a badly-damaged bullet monkey.

Ivan and Dr.Wright

Ivan shifted in his seat and took a long drink of his beer as Baron spoke. He placed the beer back on the counter with a definitive "clunk" and rested his hands steepled on the table, as if he were in thought. Baron wasn't sorry for anything, and Ivan wasn't quite sure why he was. It wasn't like he asked Baron to fight.

"You and me both." Ivan replied "I'm staying the hell out of this thing if I can. I have a feeling that my occupation will put me in the line of fire to a certain degree." He paused for a moment, and a wry smile crossed his face. "If you do find yourself caught up in it, however," Ivan said "call me if you want anything to explode." Dr.Wright shifted uncomfortably and began to pick at his meal. He didn't want to entertain the thought of Ivan blowing things up. Ivan seemed to get a bit too much satisfaction out of saying that.

---

Tara reached her motorcycle and jammed the keys into the ignition. She took off through the parking garage, driving around the toll booth, and swerved as Samson approached, attempting to smack him with the back wheel before taking off down the street at breakneck speed towards the bridge. As she passed a dark alley, a headlight blinked on. A grey motorcycle sauntered into the street and followed after the blazing cycle. Riding it was a dirty-looking man with a grey cowboy hat on his head, held on by a drawstring as he drove. He had a crooked smile on his face, and smoked a cigarette as he swerved down an alley and intersected Tara's bike as she turned left onto Watson Street, towards the Watson-Crick Bridge. He sped up, gaining on her as she blazed past the bridge's toll booth, causing red lights to blare and a siren to go off. A second motorcycle roared through right after her, and the attendant ducked as four quarters embedded themselves into the bulletproof glass kiosk. A spent cigarette butt splattered against the toll booth's slider.

City of Gold OOC

Working on a post now. I'm gonna wrap up the bar fight because I'm getting a little tired of the current interactions.

In other news, I will attempt to update the OP with characters sometime this week.

City of Gold Character Storage Vault

Basic Information

Name: William Freely
Nickname/Alias/Etc: Desperado, Mr.Freely
Gender: male
Age: 33
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 175 lbs
Faction: Neutral

Appearance

Hair Color: A medium brown
Eye Color: Wilson has heterochromia iridium, a genetic condition where he has two different-colored eyes. His left eye is light blue and his right eye is a medium-hue green.
Ethnicity: Caucasian. English and German, mainly.

Physical Appearance: Freely is a rather imposing man, muscular from a life of moving between prisons. He has excellent muscle tone, especially in the chest and arms, and looks generally soldierly. He isn’t the most attractive individual, with sallow skin and mismatching eyes. He has fat fingers and nails that are generally cut incongruently and are dirty. Freely’s body is a patchwork of tattoos and scars. There is a Skulls Sugar Skull tattoo on his right shoulder that has two enormous scars across it, as if someone tried to cross it out. A large vine-like plant is tattooed on his left shoulder, with three throwing knives sticking out of it, and there is a tattoo of a black shuriken on his collarbone. On his right thigh is a tattoo of a gun in a holster identical to the gun he usually keeps in a holster around that area, and a tattoo of a knife with two vipers wrapped around it is on the inside of his left forearm. On the left side of his chest is a tattoo of an uzi, and on the right is a shady-looking cowboy riding a horse. On the right side of his back is a tattoo of a fallen soldier memorial. On the side of Freely’s left calf is a tattoo of a combat knife cutting through three playing cards, all aces. His entire lower back is taken up by a small metal shield. one of the tattoos come above his neckline, and all of them can be covered with clothing. A massive ropelike scar runs down his back from his left shoulder to his right hip. There is another scar on the back of his right thigh that appears to have been made with a bullet. A massive black burn scar covers the left side of Freely’s back and overlaps the soldier memorial. There used to be a tattoo of an M16 carbine there, but nothing remains of it.

He has a broad, round face with a wide slightly-tarnished smile framed in a thick full brown beard. The beard hides a large scar that runs across Freely’s jawline. Several of the teeth in that smile are fake, and towards the back a few molars are capped in silver. Freely is almost never seen without a cigarette in his mouth; the Skulls used to pass around a rumor that he even sleeps with one. Freely has very disorganized brown hair that sticks up everywhere; he obviously never combs it. He has large ears that stick out from his head and would look ridiculous if his bushy hair didn’t make them look smaller in comparison. Freely speaks with a Texas draw; he is obviously from the south.

Attire: Generally dirty. Freely doesn’t really care what other people think of him to such an extreme that he seriously neglects his wardrobe and doesn’t regularly bathe. Freely’s clothing generally consists of a black muscle shirt, a pair of grey cargo pants, and a grey hoodie sewn into the inside of a black leather jacket. On his feet he wears a pair of beat-up combat boots. When it gets cold, Freely wears a pair of grey gloves with the fingers cut out. When he’s feeling particularly cheeky, Freely will wear a black stetson.

Personality

Outward & Innate Personality: Freely is a laid back individual with a devil-may-care attitude resonating from him. He is always relaxed-looking and is never known to be over stressed or tense. He is almost always smiling, even when there’s nothing to smile about. To a degree, it is disturbing. Most people who meet Freely think that he’s high, but he rarely is so. His demeanor is pretty blatantly construed as apathy, which is what he mostly feels. Freely just doesn’t care about anything from relationships to laws. Some have labeled him as a sociopath, others just as a total asshole. Freely is a very rebellious man, choosing commonly to do something because you’re not supposed to more than he does things you are supposed to do. In terms of criminal disposition, Freely is up there with the likes of Joker and Harley Quinn, though he’s not quite at their level. Freely does things simply because he wants to; he sees through laws. If he feels like exerting the effort to rob someone, then he’ll do it no questions asked. He lives a very hedonistic lifestyle. In essence, Freely is just a nuisance to everyone. He has basically no morality and at the end of the day he doesn’t really care who he’s pissed off and who he hasn’t. His strongest motivator is boredom; if Freely is bored, then he becomes extremely dangerous.

The question remains, though: is Freely actually insane, or does he just really need a hobby?

Hobbies/Interests: Freely will do anything that keeps him from being bored. This includes exercising, running, committing crimes, getting high, having sex, smoking, fighting, shooting, reading comic books (he doesn’t have the patience necessary to read normal books), horse-riding, climbing, scheming, aimlessly surfing the web at the local library and getting kicked out for watching porn. Freely has a soft spot for horses, and when he gets spare time and money he’ll go to the horse races.

Skills/Talents: Generally being a nuisance. Freely is good at figuring out what gets under someone’s skin and exploiting it. He can be a real pain in the neck to people who get irritated easily. He obviously has a degree of intelligence despite his lack of education, though he has more of the street smarts variety rather than the book smarts variety. Having spent time in the military, Freely is trained in hand-to-hand combat and is fairly decent shot with a Beretta M9 and an M16. He is very good at horse-riding.

Prized Possession: He owns very little.
Quote(s): “What do you mean I smoke too much? Who cares? We’re all gonna fucking die someday anyways. What’s the point in being healthy if you’re just a corpse waiting to get stuffed in the pine box?”

History/Bio: Freely was born in San Angelo, Texas. His father was a police officer. His mother died in childbirth, and so he never knew her. Freely’s father was a tough man, always very strict to a point of smothering. He had no qualms about beating his children, and so Freely gained a general disrespect for authority, as no matter what he did he was going to get hit anyways. He grew up wanting to be a cowboy, and in Texas that wasn’t as hard as you’d think. He took horse-riding lessons from his uncle starting at age seven, and at age fourteen began doing rodeos, breaking colts and broncs. From age thirteen to age seventeen, Freely worked on his uncle’s ranch during the summer. The pay was shit but he loved every moment of it. It was here that Freely learned to fight and started smoking. Unfortunately, Freely’s father wouldn’t have his son become a cowboy, even though he was good at it. His father wanted the best for him, and so tried to send him to college. Freely was expelled from San Angelo Community College in two-and-a-half months. Angry with his father, Freely left home and joined the Marines, where he served for five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was here that Freely learned about his power. He got the tattoo of the knife on his calf because it was the symbol of his unit. He was in a small town on a mission to rout out an enemy weapons cache when his unit was ambushed. Five members of his ten-man unit were gunned down, and as he ran into a house for cover he was attacked by a soldier at close combat range. Instinctively, he grabbed for the tattoo, and ended up gutting the attacker with a six-inch combat knife. This was his last tour. After that day, he left the military and never returned. He was severely psychologically damaged, with PTSD and depression.

Now that he knew about his power, he decided to turn himself into a walking arsenal. He developed his carelessness and disrespect for authority around this time, and began stealing. He was arrested for armed robbery and spent three years in prison in San Antonio. He was then arrested on charges of murder, but no definitive evidence could be found to convict him, as there were no fingerprints left behind and no murder weapon. He came to Mendel after hearing about the Skulls, this gang of metahumans, and joined their ranks. He was a Skull for about four years, until one day he robbed a bank and killed all of the attendants. The police never found him, but the Skulls realized at that moment that he was too dangerous and unstable. They set an ambush for him at the Skulls’ lair and when he came home one night, attempted to kill him. He shot his way out, killing two Skulls peons in the process, and was found the next day laying in a ditch. He managed to pull through and survive, but there were still amends to be made over the death of those bank tellers. He was taken into custody. Unfortunately for the police, they had no idea of Freely’s ability. He busted out of the police office with ease and fled to the Bayou. He was hunted for almost a year, but they eventually gave up and he returned to Mendel. He’s technically still wanted, but after what he did with those cops few people want to fuck with him.

Family:
Daniel Freely: Father: Deceased.
Grant Freely: Uncle: Alive.

Relationships

Relationships:

| Skeleton | Bad | Enemy | “Well that fucker’s on my shitlist. Now I just need to figure out how to kill him.”

| Damian | Bad | Enemy | “He’s responsible for the scar on my back and the gunshot wound. If I ever get bored enough, I’ll go murder him and feed his entrails to the sewer monster.”

| Kylie Detmer | Bad | Enemy | “Those burns still fucking hurt.”

| Whisper Kiyoshi | Neutral | Potential Ally | “She’s hot and feisty. I’d love to bang her, and he’s good at what he does; kicking ass. If anything between the Skulls and the Vanguard started up, I’m picking her side and getting some revenge.”

Abilities

Power Class: anatomical.

Power: If it wasn’t obvious enough, Freely has the ability to transform his tattoos into real objects. Every tattoo on his body can take a corporeal form and can be used in combat. The tattoos are made out of whatever they look like they’re made out of in the picture, so long as it exists. Currently, he can create the following things from his tattoos; a seven-inch dagger, a six-inch combat knife, a nickel-plated Beretta M9 .40 S&W, an Uzi MP-2 carbine, three throwing knives (he’s not particularly accurate with these), and a shuriken. The decorative aspects of the powers, like the vines around the knives and the snakes around the dagger, do not appear. I know this is kind of short, but I don’t really know what else to say. it’s not a particularly complicated power.

Weaknesses/Limitations/Drawbacks: Considering that Freely can literally pull a gun out of his ass, he has some weaknesses. Firstly, Freely can create only what is depicted in the tattoos and only those things. He cannot change the shape of any tattoo, and they appear exactly as depicted. Note that Freely has no tattoos of ammo for the guns. Freely needs to reload the guns outside of his body (though he can store them with ammo loaded) so he can pretty easily run out of ammo. Any weapon that Freely throws, like the shuriken or the throwing knives, need to be recollected in order to be replaced and used again (the tattoo disappears after he synthesizes it). Thirdly, if one of Freely’s tattoos are physically damaged, he loses use of them (thus why his old assault rifle is burned out of his back). Besides that, Freely’s powers do not give him any sort of physical advantage over opponents. It simply allows him to carry normal weaponry in a creative way.

Other: Themesong pending.

City of Gold OOC

Titus will most certainly survive. I don't know how I feel about the getaway driver part. I mean, it's not common for Skulls to be seen in Vanguard territory, especially at this time of night.

City of Gold OOC

Ivan and Dr.Wright

"Sparingly," Dr.Wright replied to the Dreadnaught comment. Ivan had mentioned them before, but he seemed to be a little...hesitant to talk about the private military company, and so Wright never really asked "No, he's not a geneticist. He's a nuclear chemistry professor. We just happened to meet not long ago." As the waitress walked off to get Ivan another beer, he looked up and remembered that he was in the middle of a conversation.

"Yeah. The departments were working together on a metahuman case." Ivan said mundanely as the third beer arrived.

"It was really quite interesting." Wright began "There was a meta who was causing things that they touched to explode, and we managed to isolate the gene that caused the issue and Ivan invented a spray-on chemical that with the genome reconstruction nullifies the power so well that they can now touch things and not worrying about them exploding. It was the first time that a process like that one had ever been achieved. We won several awards a-"

"Engine run-on again, Toby." Ivan said, turning to Baron "If the Skulls and the Vanguard are about to throw down, then it's going to get bad. Think Levant, but with superpowers."

Skeleton

Skeleton eyes Reiko and listened intently. Her words were true, there were others that could do the job better, but she was one of the strongest metas around and Titus was still missing (Damian claimed that he had no idea where the lug went off to, but Skeleton highly doubted that). Reiko would be the best choice, and he doubted a blind woman would be able to put her in enough mortal peril to cause her any kind of long-term harm. Damian walked across the bar and stopped next to Skeleton, finally getting a good look at the challenger.

"You sure about this?" Damian whispered "I don't like the smugness of this chick."

"Absolutely certain." Skeleton replied " I think you're the best choice for this, Reiko, and I trust you the most. We need to give miss...what'd you say your name was?" Damian rolled his eyes and, walking to the other side of Skeleton, patted Reiko on the shoulder and whispered in her ear "Don't worry. You know me and Skully will keep you safe."

The Vanguard v. Titus

Luckily enough, Titus turned his head to look at Cass' antics just in time for Rabbit's bottle to collide with the side of his head. He released a barbaric yelp as the shards of glass sliced his flesh like razorblades, and felt the hot blood roll down his face. He swung at Whisper, and she rolled out of the way. His fist kept going and it crashed through a wall, leaving a massive dent the size of a Christmas ham. Emilio fired a strand of yellowish venom and hit Titus square between the eyes. The venom burned and Titus' skin became discolored as the venom killed his skin cells. By this time, his head had finished repairing itself, and he swung a bar stool at Emilio. Emilio grabbed the stool and, getting a firm grip on it, wrenched it from Titus' hands, tearing the base of the stool off in the process. He then persisted to smash Titus in the face with the barstool seat, sending the large man stumbling backwards. Titus kicked hard at Emilio, and just barely grazed the reptilian man's shoulder. Emilio stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, doubled over in pain as the flesh of his arm instantly bruised. He felt his arm, but there was no bone breakage. He was a lucky bastard. Whisper rematerialized and kicked Titus in the back of the head. He fell through the bar's glass double doors and stumbled into the hallway, where he fell on Johnny, killing him instantly. All that remained was a pair of star-shaped sunglasses. Titus turned around to find a blade in his face. He cried out as Whisper sliced his left eye clean in two, and crashed into the wall, his eye gushing blood. Passersby ran for their lives to the stairs, knowing that the elevators would be too slow to let them escape.

...The elevator. There was an idea. Whisper looked over at Emilio, and then at the elevator. Emilio, in exchange, looked to Nick.

"Nick!" he yelled "The elevator doors! Can you open them?" Taylor, meanwhile, darted under the bar counter, where she sat holding her knees against her chest and listening to the fight.

---

Tara twisted and twirled through the crowds, attempting to hide herself from Samson, who was in hot pursuit (pardon the pun). She crossed the street and dodged a roaring taxi before turning down a side alley and pulling a small contraption out of her pocket. It was a black rectangle, about three inches long and two wide, with a tripwire bundled around it like a cord. She quickly unstrung the tripwire and attached it to the alley walls with suction cups before covering the box with a few pieces of trash. If the wire was tripped (it was very thin and hard to see), the box would explode and throw a smoke cloud into the air, thick enough to blind even the most highly-trained hunter. She set the machine up and then took off down the alley, the soles of her shoes glowing as she ran supernaturally fast towards the street and then turned right towards the parking garage next to the art museum.

City of Gold OOC

I'll start working on a post right after I shower.

City of Gold OOC

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.