PlagueOfUndeath

"Welcome to Wiener Shack, may I take your order?" Mona 'Mo' Webber said begrudgingly to the overweight, pimply, nearsighted, and buck-toothed moron in front of her.
"El Guapo Grande recomends the GLORIOUS Salsa Spice Dog!" El Guapo Grande, Manager of Wiener Shack since he accidently sat on the previous manager, announced loudly.
"Yes, I will have a regular hot dog with three ounces of relish, two ounces of ketchup, two ounces of mustard, and cooked at exactly 400 degrees," the moron ordered.
"Comin right up," Mo said sadly.
Minutes later, the hot dog was ready, and she presented it to the customer.
"WHAT'S THIS? This was cooked at 390 degrees and has two and a half ounces of ketchup! I'm not paying," he whined.
"I'm sorry sir, I can fix it for you but..."
"NO EXCUSES! I'm calling the Better Business Bureau!" the customer exclaimed.
Mo's patience was now gone.
"OH I'm SOOOO sorry I put HALF an ounce of ketchup extra on your hot dog! I'm SOOOOO sorry our machine has only ONE setting! And I'm SOOOO sorry I did my job!" Mo reached over, grabbed the customer by the collar, and brought him close to her face. Quite an accomplishment given her very small size, "Here's how it's going to work, bucko, you're gonna pay, you're gonna eat your dog, you're gonna say 'That was delicious!' and you're gonna tip me. [censored] like you make my day VERY difficult, and I've just about had it. Kapisch?!"
"I-I'm telling your manager! This is assault!" the customer squealed.
"El Guapo Grande is the manager, and El Guapo Grande is scared of her. She has most magnificent hero license as well!"
"...and by not paying, you're STEALIN! That means I can put your face through a wall. And don't think I won't, either, this is my fourth job in six months," Mo's look was one that would strike fear into the hearts of even the most evil and vile villain.
The customer emptied his wallet, ate the hot dog, and ran away, screaming 'delicious!' as he went.
"Thank you, come again!" Mo said sweetly, her attitude pulling a 180.

El Guapo Grande got about ten feet before he realized everyone else was diving into the portal.
Shrugging, he followed.

(OOC: Oh, uh, keep in mind that El Guapo Grande is still on fire. Very, very hot. He's a walking torch.)

Ryuji wasn't afraid for himself. He couldn't die, but he could still feel pain.
His compatriots, however, could feel pain.
"Grande, let's get out of here," Ryuji called.
"But, the Rikti are still there! El Guapo Grande must inflict swift justice!" he called back.
"Just go, lead the others out you walking jalapeno. I'll deal with the Rikti. Or rather, we'll deal with the Rikti," Ryuji held up a whistle covered with chinese characters.
Blowing on the whistle, no sound apparently came out. There were, however, mists forming around his feet. The mists coalesced and became the shape of a great white wolf. In truth, she was the last wolf of Japan, named for her master: Hyouma, the Spectral Frost Wolf.
"We're going after those Rikti, it's not often they leave a portal open. You get the others out," Ryuji 'ordered'.
El Guapo Grande nodded reluctantly and signaled to the others to follow him.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

"and an anthropomorphic cow manned the bar.
In addition to the bar was a full service buffet run by an anthrophomorphic bear.


[/ QUOTE ]

OOC: Way too big of words.

Tyler looked around the room. "Do we gotta kill our own meat?" Tyler asked looking at the cow and bear.

[/ QUOTE ]
(OOC: I spelled em wrong, was in a rush )

El Guapo Grande moved to the side of the firing Rikti, forcing a few of them to cease fire or risk hitting their comrades. He then charged full steam at the Rikti guarding the portal, glancing off their energy blasts (in his mind, negative energy was just energy that didn't feel good about itself) and even seeming to absorb some of them.
Ryuji, meanwhile, had gathered a few Rikti rifles from his frozen adverseries.
One notable thing about energy weapons was that they required a charge, and if it requires a charge, it means its combustible. and if there's no way for the energy in the rifles to release...well...boom.
It wasn't that difficult, he had done something similar during the war. It just meant turning on the gun's charging component and enabling the charge, then freezing the barrel.
He then began throwing his makeshift bombs at the Rikti below.

"Let's be on our way, then," Thaddeus said, whispering something into a small box.
With a *poof* they were inside a small room, still in The Edge, but hidden in a building far away. The room was decorated with objects befitting a bar, and an anthropomorphic cow manned the bar.
In addition to the bar was a full service buffet run by an anthrophomorphic bear.
"Help yourselves, I must step into the back room briefly," Thaddeus said, stepping through a door and locking it.

Ryuji facepalmed. He had made his way a short distance from the portal, but far enough away so he wasn't a chief target.
So...
The Rikti thought tethering themselves to a conduit was a good idea...WHY?!
Ryuji judged the distance, judged the amount of Rikti near the portal. And began throwing ice spikes at the conduits connected to the Rikti's guns.

Meanwhile, the glorious El Guapo Grande executed another powerful flaming hand clap while the Rikti were busy installing their negative guns. After all, they had to actually stop firing, reach down, pick up the conduit, plug it into their gun, lift the gun up, and continue firing. Not to mention this essentially tethered them to the portal. Even if their guns were slightly more powerful, they were sitting ducks.

El Guapo Grande, being one of the closest to the portal and most magnificent of all, rushed the portal, stood in front of it, and began executing his Luchadore skills in bringing down one Rikti after another.
Some got through, but boy would they have scars to talk about.

(OOC: Well anyone who regularly PVPs knows how much of a pain in the [censored] ice tankers are to hit The whole 'dodging everyone's fire' would be a lot more believable if I could actually put him in action. It's not as simple as just "magically dodging bullets," if anything the way he's moving should have the Rikti shooting each other.)
Ryuji felt the intrusion of the mentalists. It actually startled him for a moment and almost stopped his momentum long enough for a laser blast to hit him.
The mentalists would be just as startled: tapping Ryuji's mind, a mind already full of hundreds of years of sorrow and teenage angst, would be an unbelievable shock to them.
A shock long enough for Ryuji to vault over the annoying Rikti with a blade and hop over to the telltale head clutching Rikti to freeze them solid too. There were only two of them.
Then he noticed the third. Focusing a 'psionic lance' the Rikti were oh so proud of. It wasn't that he knew 100% that he was doing that, he kind of figured it out when he noticed a third Rikti focusing on him and clutching his head when one Rikti was frozen solid and the other was still trying to dominate his mind.
So he gave both of them a little present: a 'lance' of his own, right in the neck between the ****** of armor.
As he was holding the lance in the 'lance' throwing Rikti, watching it struggle, he spoke to it, using it as a shield against other Rikti like he had been doing for the entire fight. Either they didn't shoot him at risk of hitting their comrade, or they did shoot him and shot their comrade.
"I'm letting you in on a secret," he said, "This is NOT your world, you come to our world, attack our people, and don't even have the decency to try something unique enough to provide me with a challenge? I fought you [censored] in that war, I learned your tricks. People DIED fighting you, good people. Now you're going to die, I hope you enjoy it."
With that the Rikti's brain froze solid.
Only one mentalist left, and it was still trying to assert control over something far older and far stronger than it was. The Rikti went into Ryuji's mind expecting a normal human mind. What they found was the focused, unyielding mind of a true fighter. Cold.

El Guapo Grande was still channeling max heat. He couldn't turn it off! The ground beneath him began to melt, so he started moving. By chance, a catwalk he was standing on melted through and he fell, hit his head on another catwalk, and hit the ground. He stood up and saw others running towards the tombstones. The glorious El Guapo Grande thought maybe this would be a good idea, so he charged them as well, ramming into one of them (and, if it fell, continuing on into the shield) with all his bulk and intense heat.
El Guapo Grande had fought the Rikti in the war. Just as Ryuji had studied and learned from the Rikti, El Guapo Grande had just been shot so much he developed an immunity to Rikti energy weapons, as strange as it sounds. Similar to how a player develops an immunity to pepper spray. Sure they still kind of tingled, but they probably felt even more tingles when his burning fist slammed into their chests.

Thaddeus smiled.
"Of course not, in fact I'm rather famished myself. Perhaps you would all like to go to my private club not to far from here? I'd invite you to my house but the press watches it like a circle of vultures," he said, pointing towards a run down, derelict building.

(OOC: I guess I forgot to write the line "Ryuji deftly dodges Rikti energy blasts by standing right in front of them" lol. And it actually works too)
Ryuji felt the shift. He felt even more insulted and just shut his shielding powers off while he turned another Rikti into an ice bucket.
These Rikti seemed strange. Ryuji knew about their telepathic abilities, he and El Guapo Grande had both fought in the Rikti war and had learned their tricks. Their overreliance on technology was slightly compensated by their new use of the mages (that Ryuji was freezing solid one after another) but it still wasn't enough. El Guapo Grande was constantly doling out punishment with his Super Ball of Rikti Doom, and Ryuji had been dodging bullets since they were fired from single shot rifles and were about as accurate as throwing a rock over your shoulder. It was part of the reason he disliked them: even back when they were inaccurate, they were still predictable: any gun, no matter how powerful, no matter how accurate, couldn't hit something that wasn't there.
And the only time Ryuji stopped moving was to freeze someone solid.

(OOC: Armor=metal, metal gets hot and becomes malleable)
Ryuji found it interesting that he the heat around him was growing. He also found it interesting that the mages obviously had no idea how his powers worked. They soon found out when he walked up to one and jammed his hand into his temple, giving him the worst case of brain freeze anyone could possible receive. The more heat they poured into him, the more he would have to work his powers. But if heat could kill him, all those times he tried to kill himself by throwing himself into a volcano probably would have worked. In fact, that particular volcano eventually froze over. Moreover redirecting the heat from El Guapo Grande not only told Ryuji where the big lug was, but where each of the mages was.
It was a battle of time, and Ryuji had much more.

El Guapo Grande felt the tiny little Rikti enter his mind. PREPOSTOROUS! If it had been ONE Rikti trying to plant ONE thought of ONE emotion over and over in his brain, it MAY have worked.
What was more, they chose the two emotions Sanchez, the man who had moved in one day and never left, had taught El Guapo Grande to combat the most!
Loneliness: El Guapo Grande thought of his family back in the tiny village. AH! Pleasant memories! He remembered what they told El Guapo Grande: "You will never be alone, now get the hell out of here before you step on your little sister again."
Despair: Despair was the end of hope! And when his parents had turned him loose on the world, he had been told by Sanchez: "Hope you come back one day!"
THERE IT WAS! The hope that one day El Guapo Grande would be enough of a man to come back to his tiny village!
Despair became HOPE!
Loneliness became FAMILY!
But the glorious El Guapo Grande still was annoyed by the tiny Rikti trying to speak into his mind. So he took his ball and heaved it at them.

"Hey Grande!" Ryuji yelled at him.
"Yes, Tiny One?" El Guapo Grande called.
"Turn up your heat to max," Ryuji said.
"Are you sure tiny one? Once El Guapo Grande goes max, things will melt!"
"Only for three seconds. Just do it."
"OKAY!"
El Guapo Grande suddenly ignited with white hot heat for three seconds. When he wasn't willing the flames, they were maybe as hot as a campfire. Now they were hot enough to, and were, melting Rikti armor rather than just causing it to scald the rikti wearing it. The intense heat would do one of two things: If the mages were EXTREMELY good, it would all go to Ryuji. No loss there, he couldn't die.
If the mages were moving the heat directly from El Guapo Grande to Ryuji, everything between the two would be melted.
If the mages were channeling the heat, they'd be dead. Period.
All anyone knew right now was it was suddenly very hot.

(OOC: And any good tanker's gotta know how to hold aggro )
The Rikti wouldn't be concerned with shooting El Guapo Grande much longer, as he had suddenly discovered a truly ingenious use for the writhing Rikti at his feet: AMMUNITION!
With their armor searing hot, he was able to smash a bunch together, forming one gigantic Rikti Ball of Smashing!
He then began to swing the giant ball around like a wrecking ball, resulting in something similar to Katamari Damacy.

(OOC: Um, next time ask me before following one of the 'marks'.)
"I'm in," Bin said.
Mo shrugged, "I guess I am too. Though I dunno how much use I'll be, Bin here is super fast but all I'm good at is playing music."

On a rather new note...
I'm trying something relatively new with Bin in Street Life...
Can you imagine how hard it is to write dialog for a character who doesn't speak more than two words at a time?

(OOC: Oh boy I do so love a challenge.)
Ryuji felt rather insulted! He had lived for hundreds of years, fought spell casters and psychos with flamethrowers since before these Rikti and mages had been alive, and they thought a cage of FIRE could stop him? Come now...
Ryuji did what he usually did: he took a deep breath and froze the air around him, forming a thick layer of ice with the same growth properties as his ice spikes. Which meant he was surrounded by a constantly growing block of ice, normally not a wise thing since disintegrating it usually took more time than it took for him to inadvertantly crush his own lungs and pass out for a while. Fire cages worked well for this, however. By walking through the flames, the ice shell melted except for a thin layer around his body, and he was unharmed by the flames. Even if he was harmed, he wouldn't die. Worse case scenario he'd have to wear a wig for a while and buy a new coat.
"I don't like being toyed with," Ryuji said to the Magus, "Mages like you really piss me off."
When the Rikti tried to attack Ryuji again, he dodged the blade and socked the Rikti in the stomach, freezing it solid as he did.

El Guapo Grande thought he felt the stunning effects of the Rikti rifles...but they just made his passion flow even more. El Guapo Grande felt his great strength grow, and performed his oft-unused but truly spectacular attack, one that the Rikti would surely remember for years to come...if they survived it.
Concentrating the flames in his hands, the Glorious, Radiant El Guapo Grande unleashed a clap, a mighty clap, with hands ablaze.
The sonic boom from the clap would knock any Rikti near him off their feet, and the flames would sear them, burning their armor to their flesh.
He then followed up by smashing his mighty, burning foot into the ground, causing everything to quake and burn, including Wielder's attacker.
"El Guapo Grande is saddened! Tiny aliens forgot El Guapo Grande delivered swift justice to them to last time they came! For SHAME!" he announced.

"Tonight at the old Beaslix Apartment building, Antonio of the Outcasts and Jimmy Croix of the Family will be holding a meeting. The Family will be exchanging weapons for an agreement of non-interference by the Outcasts. If someone was to, say, dress like an Outcast or Family, bust into the meeting, and attack the other side, the already tense atmosphere would shatter, and any semblance of trust present would dissolve. Even better, if Antonio and Croix are found dead, neither side would ever trust the other and you would have the advantage of chaos working for you. In addition if you stole the weapons being traded, it would not only give you an edge in the coming conflict, but would further dissuade trust as each side would blame the other for taking the weapons," Thaddeus explain, then he noticed a familiar look on Tyler's face. The look of bravado and over confidence so common amongst youth growing up on The Edge. He saw many a thug give the same look and consider his allies to be less than garbage. In gang warfare and in business, the look was the same. The only difference was the distribution of weight in the person's body.
"I guess it's worth addressing that none of you should be underestimating one another. I chose you all for a reason, and I expect there will be others once you 'establish your rep.' You have little reason to trust me or each other beyond individual friendships, but you have no reason not to either. After all, if you walk away now, the chance of failure for the group goes up. You can trust me or you can not, but I think a few crates worth of automatic weapons should offer enough incentive for this job at the very least. After all, you can sell them to some militant nation through my ties and make a handsome bit of change."

"Information! I provide you with the locations and times when and where striking the Family and Outcasts would be most beneficial, and you follow through. Of course, I don't expect you to work for free. Any contraband you find is yours to do with as you please," Thaddeus replied, "And when the job is a little more...complicated...than usual, I'll even provide certain 'tools'. Of course, it will all be declared 'stolen' so as to alleviate any suspicion."

"Oh believe me, I know," the old man chuckled, "I grew up here."
Mo and Bin were shocked, as for the others...

The androgynous person saw Tyler make a move towards his employer and stepped up to him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Suddenly, the person's body began to change and, in mere seconds, looking like the spitting image of Tyler. The only difference was he was backwards. Anything on Tyler that was worn on the right side of his body was on the person's left and so on.
"Do not approach my Master," the person said in Tyler's voice.
"Mel, that's enough," Thaddeus signaled to his assistant to let go.

When Sasha opened the file, she would find official documentation, a DVD labeled 'Video Evidence', and numerous forged documents with familiar Family signatures and Thaddeus' as well.

"Not gangbangers," Bin said to Tyler, "We're Musicians."
"Yeah, I don't like gangs any more than you do," Mo said, "But this guy sounds like he's offerin' to get RID of the gangs rather than just forming another one."

Bin sighed at the recent development, "So hungry."
"Ah pin it, if we wait til later this evenin' he'll probably be so plastered he'll think he's working in a french restaurant again," Mo shrugged, walking over to the victimized kid.
"Man, it seems like there are more and more gangs here everyday," she said, watching the pursuers run off and 'disappear'.
As if on cue, a large SUV-limo pulled up to the small group, its tires screeching. From the driver's seat came a tall person of dubious gender who ran around back and opened the door. Out stepped an elderly man in what could only be described as the cleanest and most well kept suit any of them had ever seen. On his fingers were solid gold rings that made the pickpocket instincts of everyone in the group go off. And together with his mustache that covered his mouth and wiggled when he talked, no one honestly believed he was here for a casual drive.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I bid you good day. My name is Thaddeus T. Schroeder XXII, and I am an advocate of urban renewal."
"Yeah so what? We get enough 'urban renewal' with those Family goons coming in and making this hellhole even more of a...hellhole! Are you going to buy us out? Offer us money to make us leave and let the Family do their dirty work? Well I got news for ya: I was born an' raised here! It's my home!" Mo said, going off on her usual tirade that usually got her into trouble with whoever she was yelling at.
"Oh heavens no! My interests are purely humanitarian," Thaddeus laughed, "I won't say this isn't selfish, I am in this for the publicity of dealing with the family and turning this neighborhood into a place its residents can be proud of."
"Still skeptical," Bin added.
"Yeah, how d'we know you won't just screw us over?" Mo demanded.
"I didn't expect you would trust me. Allow me to cut to the chase. What I am here for is to find people unaffiliated with the Outcasts or the Family to deal with them both. I have information that can aid you in the..."
"Whoah whoah wait a minute. You want US to wage WAR on the Family?! Haven't the Heroes been doin' that since before we were BORN?! What makes you think we would fair any better?" Mo yelled.
"You misunderstand. The gangs and citizens of The Edge have been fighting a war all along. I am merely here as...an organizer of sorts. I have been watching all of you for quite some time. You all have abilities that make you unique. I simply wish to unite you all under one banner to take back your home from those who are taking it from you," Thaddeus explained.
"Fine, but I still don't know how we can trust you. We've been screwed over by old rich guys before. It's why The Edge doesn't have a public school anymore," Mo calmed down a bit.
"Of course. Mel?" Thaddeus turned to his androgynous assistant, who nodded and handed him a file, which he handed to Mo.
"I know you'll trust me because, by giving you this file, I'm trusting you," he explained, "In that file is an assembly of data that would link me to the Family. If it became public I would lose my reputation, my fortune, and most likely mine and my family's lives. It's all forged of course, so the damage done would only affect me before everyone realizes it and my family's name is cleared."
"You'd put your FAMILY'S lives on the line for a tiny patch of real estate??" Mo stammered.
"Ah, well, you see, I hate my family. They're crooked, evil, and tried to put me in a nursing home before I bought the place and turned it into a health spa for the elderly," Thaddeus seemed to grin under his bushy mustache, "So do you accept?"
"I dunno, what do you guys think?" Mo said, turning to the others.

"Mo, Donny's?" Bin said, a little perturbed that his stomach was still feeling hunger pangs.
"Ah! I almost forgot!" she said, turning to head towards the local Donny's, but stopping to face the others, "You guys comin? Old man Bigsby is usually too stoned to charge us any money."

"Well, I don't like causing permanent injury, then I can't injure them more!" Mo exclaimed.

"Not as fun as the time he pretended to be a tailor," Mo continued, an angry smile on her face.

"Yeah, I figured it out when he gave them to me to hold up my top once," Mo said, letting their imagination fill in the rest.