TemptingTorrent

((oops sorry paradigm!))

Odette looked lazily up at David said on;y one thing, "Thank-"

Odette was instantly teleported to the feet of the man she had worked so hard to escape. She lifted her head as she lay before Masquerade and looked up at the blood red tears on his mask, frozen in fear.

[ QUOTE ]
Shioh took the card in her hands, flipping it around, sniffing it briefly.
"I'm Shioh, I serve Arachnos," she blurted out proudly.

[/ QUOTE ]

“Arachnos...and what exactly are you doing on a luxury cruise ship in the middle of the pacific?”

[ QUOTE ]
Harry made no comment to any of this, his face carrying a decidedly neutral expression as he swallowed the pretzels he'd been chewing and plucked up the discarded straw wrapper. He lazily twisted it about in his hands while he let the others talk for awhile

[/ QUOTE ]

“Awwww why so quiet harry?” Silk playfully pokes him lightly, “You must have some good actiony tactics and anecdotes to share.”

[ QUOTE ]
"Sniping's a good job mate." Famine rattled off in a lame accent, imitating something he'd seen on the internet once. "But like I said, that's Death's thing. Death as in my buddy. Four Horsemen and all. Not the scythe guy. Although I wouldn't put it past him, really..."

[/ QUOTE ]

“uh huh” Silk is a touch confused by the seemingly specific description of someone she doesn’t even know. “And what might your specialty be?”

[ QUOTE ]
The Malta operatives, having decimated Valeria's Drone, quickly stepped over it, removing any memory devices and disconnecting what was left of its weapon's feed. After doing this, the two minions swept to the end of the hall while the Operations Officer stood by the access hatch. There was a flash of a teleport and a Gunslinger joined him, bringing the number of Operatives outside the hatch to four.

[/ QUOTE ]

“Ugh, can’t do this alone” Valeria activated yet another beacon and teleported back to the security room. “[censored]...”She looks over a few security screens, looking for any of her colleagues. She sees jess passed out at a bar and she rolls her eyes. “What the hell am I going to do?”
Suddenly the voice echoes in Valeria’s head once more, “VALERIA GET DOWN HERE NOW AND SOLVE THIS PROBLEM!”
Without skipping a beat, Valeria turns around and begins walking quickly down one of the many corridors towards the luxury rooms, “maybe I can whip up a counter resonace device or something”
“JUST HURRY” the voice fades away as valeria charges down the hallway, hopin nothing gets in her way.

[ QUOTE ]
David's eyes fluttered open and he realized he had fallen asleep next to Odette. He turned to her and touched her shoulder. "Hey there.. you doing alright Odette?" David said in a soft voice very much unlike the normal gruff tone he speaks in.

[/ QUOTE ]

“Morning sleepyhead you feeling better” Odette hasn’t moved from her position either…but she was definitely awake the whole time and she still looks terribly exhausted.

((woo lots to respond to i'll be responding soon i just cant do it tonight ))

((NO FREAKIN WAY!!!???............lucky all i can do is feast on the remains that G4 offers us commoners))

((anyone seen spade?))

((where'd everyone go?))

[ QUOTE ]
Shioh grinned slightly, "In my line of work, we have to plan for the unexpected. One time I had to kill this guy with a crazy healing factor. I unloaded three clips from an SMG, two grenades, and thiry-seven cuts from my claws, and the guy still got up. So I strapped him to a garbage truck and drove it into the ocean, and fished out the body later."
Her eyes hazed over, a rather disturbing look of nostalgia creeping over her face.

[/ QUOTE ]

“How sweet! You really don’t find many girls your age with a taste for classic executions like that.” Silk was disturbingly honest when she says this.

[ QUOTE ]
"Of course, right now I'm just chillin' here without the rest." Famine smoothly lied. "But as soon as we're off this tub we're up as free agents again, if you have any problems what needin' takin' care of."

[/ QUOTE ]

Silk looks down at the card, “well that was…informative.” Looking back at famine, “My name is silk but my “trade” name is the Fallen Lotus, and I work as the chief sniper for the Twilight Masquerade and it’s a pleasure to meet you Famine.”

[ QUOTE ]
"File out. Present minimal profile. In three. Two. One." The Operations Officer whispered to the team near the resonator.

"Go."

The Engineer wheeled around the corner, taking the full force of the poisonous trap. Fortunately for him, it looked like this was a sleep variant of the trap ((/poison's trap is bad that way)) and that he'd be up as soon as something could shake him awake.

[/ QUOTE ]

The moment the engineer rounded the corner Valeria activated a teleportation beacon and she was transported back to the spot where she had been observing the two guards to begin with.

[ QUOTE ]
Something like the Stun Grenade that came around the corner next, exploding with a concussive blast that reverberated off of the ship's walls, sending metal bits and debris from the resonator's sealing in skittering along the floor. Without missing a beat, the Sapper rounded the corner with the Operations Officer and the rapidly recovering engineer, all three firing their primary weapons in concert at both the robot and Valeria.

"Don't destroy the card! Go for head shots!"

[/ QUOTE ]

Valeria watched in utter frustration as the team obliterated her droid and all the programming she had been working so hard on. She was mad but she knew that she wouldn’t have been able to take them all on unless all of her droids were out. She stayed back to watch what they would do next.

[ QUOTE ]
"Geez, don't think I've EVER been called 'dapper' before," Harry smiled, giving Famine a quick wave. "I think the closest I've gotten up till now is 'scruffy'."

[/ QUOTE ]

Silk smiles at Harry and leans in closer, “awww, well anyone that can provide me with such a fantastic evening AND put up with an annoying arena battle is truly a gentleman” She playfully pinches Harry’s cheek and settles back into her chair.

[ QUOTE ]
Playfully, Shioh grabbed the straw wrapper mere centimeters before it hit, crumpled it up, and flicked it back at Silk.
"Well, what do you do if that doesn't work?" she asked.

[/ QUOTE ]

Giving an amused smirk at Shioh’s show of reflexes, she returns her attention to the girl phases through her head, “I don’t miss sweetie…a good sniper only takes a shot if they are sure that it will end in a kill”

[ QUOTE ]
7-2-2 looked to the woman, raising an eyebrow. "Uhh, I'm her replacement. But that's not who I was sent here for. You might have to check with Ms. Valeria..."

[/ QUOTE ]

“Ah, well then why don’t I just close my notebook and JOIN THE LIMBO ON THE TIKI DECK!! Now, I don’t know what Genevieve told you, but if you don’t get in there and wax that whale of a woman I will see to it that every 200lb. woman over 40 who wants a Brazilian is sent to you!” She woman’s eyelids flutter a bit as she finishes her statement with a pained smile. She has absolutely no patience left as she walks a few steps and begins to furiously type on a laptop.

[ QUOTE ]
In the hallway where Valeria was preparing her drone to disassemble the resonator, three men waited in the access area in ambush.

One was the Operations Engineer who had installed the resonator.

Another was a Sapper, his bio-feedback rifle ready to go.

The last was an Operations Engineer, stun grenade in hand. They'd just received notification that they needed alternative access into the cargo container - and chances were good that Valeria had one.

And so as soon as she was distracted by the spa worker's inquiry, they would strike. Hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Valeria types on her robot’s input keyboard and a voice rings in her head, “ARE YOU DONE YET?!” The woman with the Auburn hair still sits in her bathroom clinging to a towel on the wall in pain as she communicates telepathically with Valeria.

Valeria speaks out loud as if talking to no one because she has no time to focus her thoughts into telepathy “I am going as fast as I can! There’s a lot of crap in the way and I need a little more time! It’s not like this thing is going to be unprotect---” Valeria stops mid-sentence but holds her pose.

For the tech genius of the Twilight masquerade she sure made the stupid mistake of exposing herself so readily. Just for good measure, Valeria types a few more sequences on the droid’s readout and a tube from her gauntlet plugs into the droid. The tube feeds a green liquid directly FROM her veins into the robot. After a few seconds a tiny green light illuminates on the screen and the droid is now armed for a poison trap. This means that if anything trips the sensors of the robot, it would automatically release a knockout gas in all directions. after this, she continues programming the robot for a tidy removal of the resonator.

((if you haven’t guessed already Valeria is a Rob/Poi MM and she is basically using “poison trap”))

[ QUOTE ]
"And moving to intercept a possible informer. Send 7-2-5 to replace my position; I'll be back...Uh...ETR is one hour, clocking from now."

"Uh...We copy, 7-2-2."

The other men disappeared around their corners and immediately entered various access hatches, moving to the internal part of the maintenance area and guarding from there, where there'd be no more interruptions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Valeria watches as they both leave and she walks towards the pipe that the resonator was in. This is freshly welded, she thought to herself as she touched the buckled metal. She rolls up her sleeve and her tech gauntlet once again wraps around her arm. The lays her hand flat on the newly-welded panel and the tech readout begins a simple analysis of the pipe. All things turn up normal until the gauntlet tests for psionic energies. The readings are off the scale and the earpiece whines in her ear causing her to cringe a bit. “[censored]! That’s one hell of a resonator.”

Valeria steps back and presses a few codes on her tech gauntlet. One of her tiny spider probes scuttles off of her arm and onto the floor. After moving a few feet from her, it begins to unfold, and more and more machinery appears as the tiny probe quickly begins to look like a full size droid. It turns out that each spider probe has small dimensional pockets that continue to build on each other until the entire robot exists on one dimension. ((How else do you explain a MM’s spontaneous regeneration of Robots lol)). For the time being she holds the robot at bay, programming its instructions for the delicate process of disarming the resonator.

[ QUOTE ]
7-2-2 walked into the Spa and cracked his knuckles. "I uh, heard they needed me down here."

[/ QUOTE ]

Suddenly a shorter blond girl with a blond pixie cut rushes up to 7-2-2 and in a huff says, “who are you?! Where is Genevieve?! ((the real crew member #A000042325)) She was supposed to be here 15 minutes ago and Mrs. Felderman is waiting for her wax?!” The girl is obviously uptight and supremely stressed. She has electric blue eyes and tiny pouty lips frozen in a frown directed right at 7-2-2.

[ QUOTE ]
Shioh cocked her head at Silk's description of the arrows.
"So, if you were to die, or somehow get separated from your arrows, or if someone STOLE one of your arrows...what would happen?" she asked, "Shiomi-nee always says to me to 'never use something that will leave a trace."
As she said this, she closed her eyes and pointed one finger in the air, acting like a teacher of some sort. On close inspection of her finger, those gathered around her might notice a distinct lack of definition present in her finger. (OOC: No fingerprints)

[/ QUOTE ]

“Well dear, I prefer to kill my targets in one go by inflicting the maximum amount of damage….aimed perfectly” silk smiles and then blows into a straw and shoots the straw wrapper right at Shioh’s heart.

[ QUOTE ]
David lay next to Odette and smiled weakly, "Don't fret. Give me an hour or so and I'll be ready to go again." He said with a laugh. With one hand he absent mindedly played with her hair.

[/ QUOTE ]

“I don’t know what to do now…she probably thinks that I destroyed the mask to try and hurt her and so she’ll probably send someone for me immediately...oh if you only kew some of the evil women under her control…they are heartless monsters that put on the guise of women…its really sick.”

(( oh plese do!!!))

[ QUOTE ]
"We're with systems maintenance, there's been a power flux that we're fixing. Off grid, independent system." The 'crewman' reported to Valeria without so much as missing a beat. "Here you are."

He then produced a perfectly forged ID, his assumed name stolen from another employee working at the opposite end of the ship.

[/ QUOTE ]

Without even looking at the ID’s, “There was a robbery in one of the maximum-security vaults just minutes ago and you should have both been reporting to your superiors as soon as your non-emergency notification tags signaled in your collars...and besides,” she looks down at the ID cards and recalls all of the crew numbers and positions with her eyepiece readout that is still on her ear, “Crew #A000042325 is supposed to be at the childcare center and #T000067342 is currently scheduled to be doing a bikini wax down at the spa…for a Mrs. Beatrice Felderman” Still making sure not to make any threatening movements, Valeria folds her hands, content with her analysis, “Don't keep Mrs. Felderman waiting..”

[ QUOTE ]
Famine nodded at Shioh before turning to Harry. "Lucky [censored]." The mercenary grinned to him, nodding in a congratulatory sort of way. Famine calmly sat down, pulling his orange hoodie back over his ballistics armor and unplugging his Cryo pistol from its belt-fed source. That alone increased the temperature in the bar a few degrees.

"So the bow thing; is this some kind of ancient family secret, etcetera, or do you just like the pew pew more than the boom boom?" He asked, turning back to Silk and raising an eyebrow in earnest.

[/ QUOTE ]

“The arrows and intangibility are just a bonus...archery is truly my passion” Silk puts her hand over her heart elegantly as she says this, “but I am assuming you prefer the bang bang boom boom approach?”

((Let’s let ‘em catch up Famine))

Valeria tracks the data her spider probe sends back every few seconds. She moves through the lower decks, hoping to god that by the time she finds the resonator, her leader’s brain won’t be mush. Valeria rounds a corner in the lower decks and sees two rather oddly placed cruise personnel standing near an open pipe. At this point she calls back her spider probe and places it back into her tech gauntlet, fitting fit neatly into a slot near her shoulder. Pressing a button on her gauntlet, the machinery seems to fold into her skin and she rolls her sleeve down, taking on the appearance of the staff member she is, she rounds the corner and speaks in an authoritative (but non-threatening) way, “You two!” She turns around the corner and walks towards the two operatives quickly, “all non-engineer personnel need to be on the upper decks preparing for the masquerade. In fact, I will need to see both of your employee ID tags because I sure didn’t give you the order to come down here!”

((Valeria works as a real crew director on the ship…she one of many in charge of making sure that all personnel are in their respective places at the right time. Her involvement with the queen is….well it’s a secret…shhhh))

*****

[ QUOTE ]
Famine walked casually up to Silk and Harry, having brushed off the ashes from his burning experience. "Yeah well that was cool I guess. Except for the part where I got lit on fire. By the way, is there any trick to getting these out?"

He pointed behind him. One of Silk's arrows was firmly planted between two armor plates below his right shoulder. "I'm starting to lose feeling in this arm."

[/ QUOTE ]

Silk looks over at Famine and stands back up immediately, “Oh my god! I am so sorry! I hope I didn’t hurt your armor…as funny as that sounds armor is expensive y’no?” She walks over to Famine and grabs and arrow pulling it out as if it were stuck in cotton, “oh and the trick to these babies…,” she twirls the arrow in her hand before removing the second one, “there is no trick to removing them…they only come out if you are an intangible…each arrowhead is made of a material that molecularly bonds with whatever it hits…they are completely permanent and deadly…until I pull them out” She twirls both arrows into her hand and then slips them into her quiver, “spiffy huh?” She taps him on the chest before making her way back to her chair, “Oh, sorry I almost forgot. This is Shioh…I believe” motioning to her, “ and this is my dapper young gentleman caller for the evening…Harry” motioning to him, “sit down and enjoy yourself.” She smiles widely.

[ QUOTE ]
"(C) I'm from St. Martial, the Rogue Isles," Shioh replied, "Where's Fujian?"
Shioh cocked her head to the side, genuinely unaware of even basic geography beyond the Rogue Isles. It was easy to think she was more worldly than she actually was, given her flawless aptitude with languages. However, her source for these languages was...unconventional...to say the least. She learned Italian initially, and when Shiomi-nee and Asuka found out and asked why, her demonstration (since she couldn't explain how it worked to save her life) caused her to pick up Chinese and Japanese from the two of them, respectively.

[/ QUOTE ]

A little surprised by Shioh’s reaction, silk continued a bit confused, “Um…it’s in china…but St. Martial? I love that casino! As a local do you go there often?” Still staring intently at Shioh, Silk moves to a nearby chair an takes a seat by Harry, making sure to be as feminine and flirty as possible….without seeming fake.

[ QUOTE ]
David put his hand to his chest a bright green light shown around it closing up the wound. David collapsed backwards into his bed, accidentally bringing Odette down with him as he tried to grab her for support. "Yeah... I think I am gonna be just fine." He said as he smiled weakly.

[/ QUOTE ]

“No you still need help!” She looks at his obviously weak demeanor. Odette stands up, “I should see if there’s a first-aid-“Odette’s knees give out and she falls to the floor again, close not uch farther from where she was initially, “well, I guess we are both spent for the time being.” She scoots closer to David resting her hand on his chest,
“The mask was a direct link to the queen’s mind…it was one of our only shots at destroying her. She is on the boat right now though, preparing for something big during the masquerade ball. It has something to do with one of the packages in the cargo hold…but what I don’t get was, who is that idiot that destroyed the mask….and how did he know?” Odette seems deep in a worried storm of thought.

[ QUOTE ]
"Eh, don't sweat it," Harry said, waving it off. "Yer always gonna get one fly in the ointment at some point. You were pretty crazy with that bow, though. Some really cool tricks ya had there."

[/ QUOTE ]

“Thanks hun! I have been training for a long time. I only wish you had had more to look at” *wink*

[ QUOTE ]
"Nihaoma!" Shioh said loudly, clasping Silk's hand.
(OOC: If you don't know Chinese, Shioh just said 'hello'. She speaks English, Japanese, Chinese, and Italian. Three guesses as to how she learned Italian

[/ QUOTE ]

(in Chinese)
“Wow, Finally someone that speaks Chinese! So where are you from? My family is from Fujian!”

((to soviet, i'll be writing up a "searching for the resonator" post later tonight just fyi))

((whew a lot to catch up on please pm me or state it in your post if I got anything wrong ))

Back in the dark security room, the woman who had performed the green veined display earlier was going over security data being compiled by the second. She stops and looks at one specific line on the paper and drops the cup of coffee she was sipping, “HOLY MOTHER OF-“The woman throws the papers aside and begins furiously typing at the keyboard trying to get the camera feeds for the room with “the crate” all of the cameras in the area have been completely disabled and she ends up looking at a wall of nothing but static, “no, no , NO NO NO!!!” The woman stands from her chair and runs through the lower decks towards the luxury suites. At this point, she doesn’t care whether she attracts attention because she knows exactly who must be informed.

[ QUOTE ]
One of the suited men casually looked over the dining hall. "Is it up?" He asked his collar mic nonchalantly.

"Just brought it online."

One of the women in the hall suddenly began screaming in panic and pain, veins bulging from her head. Wailing, she grabbed her temples and began spasming violently before suddenly and unceremoniously fainting on the floor. As various patrons went over to check on her, the suited man spoke into his mic again.

"Working as intended. Give the green light."

"Brushstalker's already on it."

[/ QUOTE ]

On the other side of the boat, a woman lounges in a glorious marble tub near the other side of the boat. Her flawless auburn hair pinned into a delicate up-do inches away from the water. At the moment the resonator was activated, the woman instantly got up out of the bath and grabbed her towel, stumbling as she gets out of the tub, “No! It can’t be!” She wraps a towel around herself and has to hold the wall to stand up. She is hit with a wave of dizziness and she falls back to the bathroom floor. She closes her eyes and concentrates.

Just then the Green-veined lady ((just call her Valeria)) stops in the middle of the hall as a voice calls out to her in her head, “Valeria, get down to the crate...i think someone has activated a resonator” the voice comes from the woman still wrapped in her towel cringing on her bathroom floor.
“WHAT?! I was just coming to tell you about the crate but I had no idea about any resonator!?”
“You must find it! I’ll try to get to the others to find the crate, JUST GO!”
Valeria immediately turns around and moves towards the lower decks again, this time taking a door to one of the larger hull cavities, “It must be near the center of the ship. While running, the woman throws three small capsule shaped objects towards the ground. They pop open into spider probes that race on ahead of her. She turns on a small readout near her ear and a little holographic screen pops in front of her eye. “Scan for all disturbances in alpha and beta wave activity of passengers and track the source of the disturbance” The woman hurries away at a quick pace.

[ QUOTE ]
David picked Odette up and took her with him speeding through the halls back to his room. "We should be safe here for a little while. I just need to get this healed up then we can figure out what to do."

[/ QUOTE ]

“David, you need medical attention! Are you up for a medicine spell?” Odette holds David close as she looks at his wound.

[ QUOTE ]
Harry started to get up when it looked like Silk was leaving the cage, but then sat back down when she seemed to change her mind.

"Oh, I like most kinds of movies," Harry said in answer to Shioh's question. "Though I kinda prefer comedies and action stuff. Cartoons too. Not a big fan of horror. Not modern horror movies anyway. Too dependant on cheap gore and shocks. I DO like the older movies though. They always seemed to have a little more imagination when it came to creepy stuff."

[/ QUOTE ]

Silk was tired of her games of cat and mouse so she walks out of the arena for good this time moving back to harry, “Damn that was annoying! Sorry it was so dull.” Looking over at Shioh, “Oh hi I’m Xian shi Ying But you can call me Silk” She extends her hand with a friendly smile.

[ QUOTE ]
"Look, I'll be right behind you." David heard the Khelari speak as a strong, whiplike tail curled about him to dump the man in Odette's arms, "Now git."

Three seconds later, the detention field gave way under the strain. Hopefully, the two were long gone by then thanks to the promised speed boost. Not that Acid had nothing up his proverbial sleeve, but keeping that field up had definitely prevented him from going anywhere...

[/ QUOTE ]

“David we have to go NOW! He will make it too” Odette concentrated and engulfed David in a blue energy, granting him a speed increase. “Please, just go, he’ll be fine!” Odette looks up back at Acid and the says softly to him, “thank you”

[ QUOTE ]
David had reached his limit... both his wound and his last attack had drained him of most of his energy. "Got to find Odette, concentrate David... listen." Closing his eyes he could hear the faint rapid breathing of a woman. Ah. There she is. David thought to himself as he crawled over to her. Knowing she couldn't see him he tapped her shoulder. "It's me Odette... its David. Are you okay?"

[/ QUOTE ]

“Oh god david!” Odette touches David and tries to lead him closer to her making sure to speak in low tones. “I swear I don’t know who he is but we have to get out of here! I’ll explain about the mask but we have to get out of here!” Odette looks towards the door but there is so much chaos going on she doesn’t know if they can make it in their conditions. “I can muster up a speed boost but there’s a shield holding the dark matter in ((right?)) and I don’t know if we can get through! Where is the guy who put it up?”

((Ok Spade let’s let ‘em catch up k?))

((sorry danny editing now))

[ QUOTE ]
Danny blinked as Silk just kind of... left. Then he shrugged briefly and unlimbered his bow.

[/ QUOTE ]

Silk got half way to the door until the word “double team” rung in her head. She smiled and stopped just inches from the door and then turned around towards Famine with her bow drawn. She is suprised to see Danny jumping in but she is happy that Grey is out of her hair. “Have fun with Blobie over there Kid. I think i'm gunna hurt this one instead!” Silk fires a single, normal arrow towards Famine, gauging his reaction. “Let’s see what you do” Silk remains poised.

[ QUOTE ]
One such lucky hit even crossed the corner Odette currently occupied...

[/ QUOTE ]

Odette was still very weak from the rapidly accumulating use of her powers but she still had enough energy to roll out of the way of Masquerade’s attack, She is exhausted and she keeps repeating weakly, “who are you? who are you? Just tell us please and stop this.” She scans the room in a desperate attempt to see David in the destruction, “please be all right…” For now, she is just concerned with escaping alive with david.

[ QUOTE ]
"Meh, just leave her there. Getting trampled a bit might make her drink a bit less next time and she's invulnerable anyway so it's not like it will hurt that much." Hero or not, Alyssa didn't care enough to drag an unconscious drunk all the way back to her room. Especially when she didn't know where said room was, could be at the other end of the boat for all she knew.

"So, you don't even want to know how it works?", she continued. "If it was me I'd want to know, but then Mum always did say I was too curious for my own good."

[/ QUOTE ]

The two were absolutely right the next thing they knew she was passed out walling directly towards Hetenko and believe me, she ain’t a featherweight.

[ QUOTE ]
At this point, he didn't really care much about the antics of Jess or what she might now. It had nothing to do with his job, and all her commotion about the topics of nudity and sex was just strange American attitude as far as he was concerned - another reason he enjoyed Japan so much. Many people there just regarded talking about these things openly as perfectly acceptable...

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Alyssa was similarly unconcerned. She considered pushing Jess off her stool for laughs, but decided not to as she drained what was left of her drink and ordered another one. She too was starting to feel a bit plastered, but that'd never stopped her before. Listening to Henteko's explanation she replied, "Wait, so now he's an illusional dragon?", in a slightly slurred voice.

[/ QUOTE ]

“Someone say illusion? I have a friend that does that Las Vegas crap…” Looking over at the Hetenko with a perplexed look on her face, “so he’s like a god or something…*hic*”

[ QUOTE ]
Using his power to make entire groups of people invisible using dark matter, Masquerade caused himself, Odette, David, and Acid to become invisible to everyone else as well as each other.

[/ QUOTE ]

Odette, used to periods of complete invisibility, used this time to move away from masquerade…or at least where she thought he was. Odette tried to stay safe so she turned on her repulsion shield that would instantly send an attacker flying if they tried to touch her. Odette was scared and still in pain from the psionic wail she endured when the mask was shattered so she waited as close to a wall as she could, hoping that masquerade would stay away. Odette looked around at the “empty” room and tried very cautiously to reveal her own arm by re-bending the light around it. She hoped their illusions were similar and that she could control it and reverse his effects.

((I leave the results of her little test up to you Paradigm))

[ QUOTE ]
"If you don't like it, forfeit." Grey Masque spat at silk with an incredibly forgettable snarl. "I guess I'll just go over there and maim your partner then, ay? I don't know about you, but I don't think anyone would favor his odds two-on-one. I wouldn't mind what happens one bit, and I can always come back for you later."

[/ QUOTE ]

“God! I have had it up to HERE WITH YOUR ADDITUDE!” Silk walks through grey and over to the door, “Silk gives Gunner a passing glance on her way out saying, “your funeral buddy” She moves towards the arena exit fuming and mumbling to herself in a string of swears.

[ QUOTE ]
"Ever been to Portal Corp? Everything exists somewhere in the multiverse, if not in this dimension then in some other. As for why, like I said just so I can say I have."

[/ QUOTE ]

“How…metaphysical” Jess finishes another pint and lets her arm drop to the counter with the glass, showing signs of drunkness, “You wanna know what’s really metaphysical and crap? Try working in the meta strip club on board and following the doctrine of a psycho faux-monarch!” asking for another brew, “oh yeah, you thought this was a family cruise?! Hell if you two only knew the...*wobble wobble*...crap that goes on this crate…whoo!”

What the Hell was she talking about? It’s obvious she was almost completely plastered but she was spilling info like mad…I wonder what else she would divulge if asked.

[ QUOTE ]
"Should have known what you were getting into." Grey Masque said casually, approaching slowly while seeking an opening in Silk's posture. "I may only be a distraction, but the main event didn't see fit to show itself to the likes of you. What you see is what you get..."

The decoy charged suddenly, trying to deliver a surprise uppercut to Silk's jaw.

[/ QUOTE ]

Silk is bold but not stupid. The fist passes right through silk as she goes intangible once again, “there ya little twit. Either you tell the ‘main event’ to get his head out his [censored] and fight me, or this is gonna get real boring, real fast” Silk puts her weight in her hip waiting for a response.

[ QUOTE ]
Talisman only had less than a second to react, Masquerade was going to kill Odette, David did something very foolish. Using his super speed , he jumped in front of the blow, saving Odette, but seriously wounding himself. The blow launched him into the wall. "Spirit Cannon." David said as he held up one hand and launched an energy wave into the attacker's stomach.

[/ QUOTE ]

Odette panics, looking at Talismans injury and realizing that this fight could go nowhere good Odette screams, “DAVID STOP!!!” She gets to her feet very slowly and realizing that Masquerade destroyed her mask, she hopes that they have a common enemy, “listen, I don’t know who you are, but if you just stop, we might be able to avoid any more bloodshed. Just tell us who you are.”

Even though she wanted to stop the fighting, she was more worried about David’s massive injury. She hopes that if she can placate Masquerade a bit, he would heal David.

[ QUOTE ]
"Nice! This is way better than that junk the old coot makes me down! Nastiest garbage ever, I tell you."

"Oh right, how rude of me." he stood again and curled the fingers of his right hand about the fist his left had become, both held close to his chest as he performed a curt bow, "Kaze Henteko. A pleasure to meet you."

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Marveling at Hetenko’s sudden extroverted shift the woman stands up and makes a very exaggerated curtsy in response, “it is a pleasure to be aquainted with you as well Mr. Hetenko,” The woman was oozing sarcasm. Then she straightens back up quickly and then grabs her drink, “I’m Jess by the way”

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"Was that really necessary?", she asked as the drunk tourist collapsed from the thrown glass.

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“Ugh, that’s annoying” looking over at the tourist, “God, I’m bored again, you guys wanna do anything? Normally a drunken stupor is more than enough entertainment but new friends make me…frisky...any ideas?”

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Mr. Erik was knocked into the wall by the punch, hitting it with a solid thumping noise. His accountant's suit and pale face with its greasy hair flickered and faded away. The man had been nothing more than one elaborate...Masquerade.

'Not in cruelty, not in wrath...Die.' David heard an icy voice echo in his head before the wraith-like man slashed his arm at David. A clear miss-Or a clean hit, as it was an attack that sliced through matter like a cleaver at a distance. A normal stone wall, as an example, would have a huge gash in it *or several such gashes* after being assaulted in this way.

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“GET AWAY FROM HIM YOU [censored]!” Odette finally gets up and reveals her secondary powers. The air seems to vibrate a bit until a massive wave of energy instantly engulfs the room. It doesn’t seem as though anything happened, but Odette had just performed a massive Fulcrum Shift, she holds her hands out to the side essentially attempting to drain Masquerade’s power and momentum, “DAVID NOW!” Odette’s eyes are bloodshot as she collapses, once again, to the ground watching intently, hoping she wasn’t too late.

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The decoy charged right through the pink mist of Silk's attack, shredding its disguise but taking no damage itself. Its disguise began to reform the moment Grey Masque was through, and he-it-was preparing for another attack.

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“Fight me for real you Coward!” Silk is getting really pissed now, “Don’t ask to fight if you’re just going to be cheap about it!” Silk crosses her arms, more pissed than poised for whatever Grey’s next attack might be.

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"Now I've seen everything." Henteko remarked with befuddlement as he returned to the bar, slouchily slumping his rear onto the next-best stool, "Seriously though, what's with the arrogant-aggressive act then? There's gotta be a better way to find people you'd like to talk to."



"Or is that a mandate from your boss or something?" he wanted to know, eyeing the luminescent beverage suspiciously as the bartender set it down, "I mean, mine might be a real dragon, but even he doesn't make me just go out and pick fights with people..."

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The woman turns to Hetenko and raising her glass half way to her lips, “when you are invulnerable to most forms of attack, you tend to live unencumbered until someone breaks the cycle…that’s why it’s fun to talk to people that stand up to you. They usually have a personality closer to mine.” She sips her drink satisfied with her answer. “oh, and if my boss knew I was doing something as un-elegant as picking fights she would throttle me…from across the room” She shivers a bit just thinking about it.

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"I think I might just drink it a little slower. Could have warned me that it'd blow my head off", Alyssa commented. "And yeah I'm a hero, not by choice though. Turns out after the Devouring Earth kidnapped me and accidentally gave me superpowers along with the odd look it wasn't possible to get a job doing anything else. Incidentally, have you ever had the experience of having your DNA forcibly rewritten while you're still conscious to experience it? Try to avoid it if you haven't, it's not pleasant."

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“Actually, yes I have…” She looks a bit misty before ordering another Naiad brew, “Nemesis tried to fix me up but got bored and when Crey found me they tried to ‘finish their antiquated work’…lets just say that Crey is more barbaric than Nemesis will ever be.”

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She turned to Henteko. "Wait, did you say your boss is a dragon? Man, this world gets stranger every bloody day." Turning back to the bar she took another gulp of her drink, wincing as it burned it's way down but managing to not cough this time.

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“now you’re getting it! Down a few more and then we can hit the bar over sternside for to pick another fight” She laughs a bit before drinking another gulp. “You want one too mr.tourist-avenger?” She nods over at Hetenko holding her glass of Naiad’s brew.

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Grey Masque walked right into Silk's attack, and his apparent apathy towards her attacks was revealed. His entire suit and face shimmered and flickered away briefly to reveal his entire body was just a semi-translucent, humanoid shaped purple layer of filmy liquid. Looking at him with anything else other than the normal naked eye would reveal nothing-literally. Higher forms of vision would reveal that there was nothing there at all. Heat? None. Mass? None. Light passed right through the area Grey Masque or whatever he was occupied.

The only thing that this guy registered as was REAL, only visible to the naked eye and perfectly solid, with no other forms of physical evidence to support his existence. Realer than real. An illusion? No. A decoy? Yes.

And mere moments after the decoy's disguise was disrupted, it flickered and reformed. Grey Masque approached with a curiously forgettable smile on his face and his hands raised into the air to deliver a killing strike.

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Silk Panics and tries to block the hit with her bow. Luckily her bow didn’t shatter but it sent her flying across the arena into the cage wall. She was lucky that she didn’t get hit by the bullets flying everywhere. She lands close to gunner, “Crap that hurt!” Silk stumbles to her feet and tries to get a bit farther from the chaos Famine and gunner are creating. She looks over at Grey, “What the hell are you?! That’s it, now it’s time for you to find out why I’m called the Fallen Lotus!” Silk pulls out an arrow with a huge lotus bud. She fires the arrow above Grey and then another arrow that hits it as its right above grey’s head. The Lotus Arrow Blooms and eack petal falls like a razor towards Grey in a neat little deadly pink cloud. “suck on that goo-boy” Silk watches in anticipation. ((think of it like Rain of Arrows, Paradigm))

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"Suck winter, baby!" He yelled to gunner, the blue glow of the pistol oddly vibrant and pulsing. Famine had clearly wired this model with the power source of a Heavy Cryo Rifle, boosting its power exponentially. Just how he'd done so was immediately obvious - a large coupling system hooked it into a belt-held generator. Famine fired the coursing beam with gusto, a blue lance that lit up the entire room.

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Silk covers her eyes at the bright blue lance, not knowing what happened with her attack but hoping that at least a few petals got through.

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Mr. Erik made a slashing motion with his hand, and the velvet cloth covering the mask beneath was shredded into bits, the mysterious man seeking to do the same to the mask itself with that same strike.

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The Mask shatters and so does the vanity drawer. Two screams pierce the air, one from a woman not present, and the other from Odette who suddenly doubles over in pain clutching her head, “AHHHHHH! D-David…mask…v-vanity someone….inside!” Odette falls to her knees and then sideways still clutching her head.

Inside, the vanity shakes a bit as the other woman’s scream continues for a few moments and then echoes into silence. It was particularly painful because the second scream did not come from anyone’s mouth, instead it was like a scream inside your mind, as if someone were blasting an air horn in your brain.

((you guys are all awesome this is so much fun!))

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She sat for a moment considering the taste, then her eyes widened. Had she been in a cartoon her face would have gone red and steam shot out of her ears, but here in real life all she did was cough and splutter a lot. "Dang! What's in that stuff?"

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“That my new friend is the Naiad’s special brew. Extra strong with a hint of the siren’s charm” She asks for one two and downs half the glass. “Even as an invulnerable, this stuff still burns on the way down” She tosses her head back laughing and then turns to Hetenko. “Hey, Jug boy, Have one it’s on me!” She slams her hand on the bar asking for another one for Hetenko. She looks back over to Alyssa, “so are you one a those hero types or did you blow in from the isles?”

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Alyssa might have been intimidated, but if she was she didn't show it. Being a hero in Paragon meant she was used to standing up to people who were bigger and meaner than her. "Of course, everyone on this boat is a bloody meta. Why was I not expecting that?" Too bad the arena's already taken, she thought to herself. We could have had a real fight. "So what are you then? Invulnerable, energy shields, what?", she asked as she gestured to the bartender to bring her another beer.

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“Invul, but who cares, finally someone interesting!” The woman’s demeanor becomes a bit less threatening and she leans back over the bar again, “listen, I work on this crate and I’ve been hitting all the bars and picking fights for fun waiting for someone to just stand their ground and you are the first one to brush me off like that! Usually they just make excuses after my face shatters their fist.” She slides Alyssa a tall foamy pint, “this is the boats special draft, and it’s on me.” The woman ruffles her hair a bit. “Damn it was getting boring…sorry about the plant jokes, I actually like your hair and I hope I didn’t hurt your hand”

Was this woman for real? Yeah, she had spent the entire day barhopping and making fun of the metas hoping for someone with a personality worth talking to.

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In other words, Henteko suspected the woman to be no more than an illusory decoy - and his glasses would either confirm or deny this...

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Hetenko’s glasses revealed that the woman was no illusion and that she was 100% woman. Oddly enough though, there was a particularly odd heat signature near her chest. It would heat to white as she inhaled and then cool almost completely when she exhaled. It was peculiar but none the less, she was in fact a living being.