Around Sunnydale, Saturday Evening
Surreal SaDiablo
How many witches could sit around, reading spells and trying things before Surreal got hideously bored and gave in to the urge to try and cut things?
Hint: Not Many.
Which was why she was out after dark, armed with more blades than could be seen at first glance, and rather hoping to find someone - or something - she could take her annoyance out on.
Natalie Adams
Usually, Natalie would have been on the research team. But she knew nothing about magic, so her assessment of the situation was that she was better suited for patrol under these circumstances. She wasn't armed, though. She didn't need to be.
She was keeping a keen eye on their surroundings, trying not to feel unsettled by the complete lack of human chatter from anywhere.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Wesley... well, he was always equally suited to patrolling as to researching, but tonight he thought that the possibility that he might recognize something they had to fight was greater than the chance that he'd uncover something useful in a book.
Also, he had wrist-mounted stakes and he really wanted to try them out, so.
Surreal SaDiablo
Oh, Surreal was eying those wrist-mounted stakes with a combination of suspicion and envy, Wesley. She was a bit suspicious about the reload time or the force behind it, but why hadn't anyone given her something that could rapidly fire projectiles?
...because they have common sense, Surreal, and you're stab-happy. That's why.
Edited at 2012-12-03 12:47 pm (local)
Tony Stark
Also because Tony hasn't had time to get bored and design insane weaponry for people. Plus he'd already used his own tablet and cell phone to create what appeared to be an extremely pared down version of his gauntlet. All weapon and no armor involved.
Look, you made do with what you had on hand. And what he had on hand allowed him to build one badass glove based taser. Just wait till you see what he can do in a cave with a box of scraps.
He whistled as they walked. Though it just looked like he was practicing invisible kisses without any sound coming out.
longislandiceme
Of course Bobby was heading out with the patrol team. Sitting still wasn't really his thing. Unfortunately, neither was revealing himself as a mutant to people he didn't know. Which was why he was nudging Tony with a shoulder and tilting his head at a side-street he thought merited closer inspection.
Tony Stark
Well, who didn't want an awesome team up between Iceman and Iron Man? Again.
It was a Marvel thing, people.
Tony nodded, touching the shoulder of the next nearest person to let them know Bobby and him weren't just disappearing off the face of the earth. Because that would be bad.
Kennedy
Kennedy nodded, checked the knives sheathed at her belt, and gave them a thumbs up, mouthing come back in one piece or I'll kick your ass.
She actually looked kind of nostalgic about patrolling in Sunnydale. Partly because in her world, you know, you kind of couldn't do that any more.
Snapping her fingers, she gestured toward the others and pointed toward a nearby street. That was where she was heading; anyone who wanted to come along was welcome.
Sookie Stackhouse
Sookie, who out of habit was sort of hovering around Bobby and Kennedy, rubbed her hands together as she hurried after the latter. Even if those hands were starting to glow, faintly, she didn't feel entirely comfortable in her role here.
Patrolling was one thing. Wandering around without her telepathy was like flying blind, and even if she'd do better here than with research, she still felt hopelessly lost.
Natalie Adams
Natalie followed Kennedy as well. She wasn't much of a follower in general, but she was very very practical, and when there was a crisi going on, it usually paid off to follow the person who seemed to know what they were doing.
You know, while keeping in mind that they might just seem that way. But Natalie wasn't very worried for herself here.
The Gentlemen
A group of white figures dressed in natty black suits floated down the street across from the group, men in straightjackets running at their sides like faithful mad dogs.
They seemed to notice the patrol team, and the group silently pivoted and went toward them. Just for funsies.
Surreal SaDiablo
Oh look, new friends! Or at least, that's what Surreal would have said if she'd had a voice.
One hand went to the bell she'd tied to her waist, giving it a sharp flick to send it singing and catch the attention of the others, while fingering the sheathe of throwing knives on her leg in warning.
...that was a friendly way to say 'hello,' right?
The Gentlemen
It totally was! That was why the Gentlemen and their servants were coming closer now. Just to say hi.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Okay then, what with the generally creepy appearance of these guys and the intimidating way they were drifting towards the group, Wesley was... just going to try firing one of those wrist-mounted stakes right about now.
It looked super-badass, really, except for how he'd apparently set the firing mechanism up backwards and the stake embedded itself into a tree behind him instead.
So. That was unfortunate.
Sookie Stackhouse
Sookie glanced over, and would have audibly sighed if, you know, that was an option. Oh, Wesley. That...was special.
But as hilarious as that'd be in retrospect, Sookie wasn't really feeling up to giggling at the moment, and instead held a hand out to shoot a bolt of violet lightning at one of the Gentlemen. It was still a warning -- she hadn't tried to take them all out.
Plus, if anyone had missed Surreal's bell or Wesley's...display, her lightning was generally pretty hard to miss. You're welcome.
The Gentlemen
No, no, the lightning was easy to spot. The tallest gentleman took the blow, seemingly unimpaired by it, but did pause to applaud.
He appreciated elegant magic.
Surreal SaDiablo
Hopefully he appreciated elegant knifeplay just as much; the moment he started to applaud, Surreal pulled three of her throwing-knives from their sheath, fanning them through her fingers quickly and lining up her throw before letting fly, following up with a punch of the Green behind them for pain.
Not at him, of course, since he was already engaged with Sookie, but at the three closest lap-dogs in their white jackets.
Let's see how he enjoyed picking up after his pets once they started bleeding.
Kennedy
Surreal was so getting up there on Kennedy's list of favorite people. Not that she could comment on it at the moment. Whatever. Look, her lack of ability to comment was a good thing for Wesley, at least.
Apparently she'd taken it as a personal affront that the Gentlemen were (so it seemed) golf-clapping Sookie's lightning.
She'd just picked up a bench and swung it at them. You could definitely interpret that as an affronted gesture.
The Gentlemen
The footmen were history. Bloody, full-of-knives history.
The gentlemen, on the other hand, were fine -- they'd dodged the park bench with seemingly impossible speed. One waggled a finger at Kennedy. You shouldn't have done that.
As he did, one of his friends went to grab Kennedy by the shoulder. Usually he waited until people were asleep to take their hearts, but if somebody was offering to be collateral damage, who was he to argue?
Natalie Adams
Yeah, no.
This was Natalie, coming in with frankly a Slayer-worthy kick aimed at the head of the gentleman trying to grab Kennedy. Judging from the swiftness with which they'd moved to dodge that bench, she wasn't necessarily expecting to actually make contact with the... man-creature. But all she was looking to achieve, anyway, was distraction.
Story of her weekend, really.
The Gentlemen
She didn't make contact, but she distracted him enough that he backed away from Kennedy and looked uneasily at the group.
It was much easier to take hearts when your prey was asleep.
Surreal SaDiablo
It was probably easier to take hearts when your prey was afraid of you, too, which this patrol team was not. Surreal called in her stiletto and savored coiling her hand around the hilt as she advanced on the men, smiling in a mildly feral manner.
It was the smile that made people say that a wise man paid Surreal in-advance. Well, these males were very much going to pay for the hearts they'd taken, and it was entirely possible (probable) that she was going to enjoy collecting.
Warren Worthington III
Warren probably should have stuck to a particular group, but being the token guy with wings... well, when there was something weird like this going around, maybe it was possible to ignore one guy flying through the air on invisible wings, keeping an eye open for anything worth taking note of on the ground. He'd dressed in black so that he'd be difficult to spot unless people were really looking, and he was carrying his Eyrien sticks on him, just in case he spotted some sort of trouble down below.
Not that he particularly wanted trouble. But he was, at least, probably in a good position to be able to spot it.
[Sorry, I really should have chucked him out here way sooner. Is it too late for Warren to play here?]
The Gentlemen
Far below him, on a side of town far from the campus, he might spot a group of pale strangers sauntering along a quiet residential street, peering into windows as they did. The gentlemen were surrounded by hearts they could take, and they intended to be choosy about it.
Warren Worthington III
Warren... really tried not to be the sort of person who quibbled about the way people looked, all things considered, but he did tend to notice when a bunch of terrifying-looking men in matching suits were going door to door, looking like they were trying to break into people's homes. He frowned, tightened his grip on his sticks, and then swooped down to land behind the group. He couldn't say anything to call them out on what they were doing, but the sound of sight-shielded feathers settling, of the thump of his feet as his shoes hit the ground, would probably be enough to let them know that they'd been busted.
[You rock so much, thank you!]
The Gentlemen
The group pivoted as one at the sound, seeming more surprised than annoyed. The human had wings; that was new.
The tallest one raised a hand to wave. Hi, person with wings. Leave us alone and let us rip a few more hearts out.
Warren Worthington III
Warren was not really big on letting terrifying men go around tearing people apart, not that he really gathered that much from the wave. But he did wave back, eyebrow raised and one hand hovering over the bladed stick sheathed at his belt, nodding back over his shoulder as if to tell these guys that they were welcome to move along and leave these families alone any time now.
The Gentlemen
Oooh, a stick. A big stick. That was impressive, really.
One of the Gentlemen gestured, and men in straightjackets came rushing at Warren out of the shadows like silent mad dogs. Go away, person with wings.
Warren Worthington III
Okay, the guys in the bushes wearing the straightjackets, Warren really hadn't seen coming. And shame on him, yes, for that much. But he'd spent the past week training in blades with Chaosti of the Dea al Mon, and sparring with Lucivar, and... well, maybe he actually needed a no-holds-barred throwdown. Maybe he even grinned a little as he pulled out his sticks and turned, looking to face his opponents.
It was a little beyond obvious at this point that, whoever these people were, they were connected with this deafening silence. And they were trouble.
The Gentlemen
They were definitely trouble, though the Gentlemen were still hanging back. The footmen swarmed Warren, unarmed but clearly fierce as they charged at his legs.
Warren Worthington III
Warren wasn't terribly worried about his legs. With his wings, he could reach out eight feet to either side of himself, and add the sticks in his hands to the equation and he was a force to be reckoned with.
It was his wings that he lashed out with first, flying out hard and fast with all the upper body strength that his avian mutation afforded him, throwing blows that would have easily broken human bones, provided they landed. The bladed sticks lashed out directly afterward, twin staffs a few feet long that ended in knives, daring the footmen to try to come within their.
He was outnumbered, there was no doubt about that, but he'd stand his ground as long as he could, and, if need be, he could take to the air.
The Gentlemen
The three footmen fell back, marked with bloody gashes to their heads and sides. The blood shone in the dim light, oily and black. Even so, they kept attacking, though their scrabbling toward Warren got more erratic.
The gentlemen themselves floated a bit further away, looking slightly more alarmed by the proceedings than they'd been at first.
Warren Worthington III
Still coming at him? Warren's lip pulled back a little, and he bared his teeth at them in a soundless snarl. He wasn't exactly looking to kill anyone or anything tonight, and he'd aim for nonfatal blows if they gave him the chance, but if they were wounded and still coming at him, he wasn't exactly holding his breath, either.
His next blows reflected that, his wings aiming for the backs of their heads, for knockout blows if he could manage it. His sticks, meanwhile, swung toward their arms, their shoulders, looking to incapacitate, if that was even an option.
The Gentlemen
The footmen went down under the assault, first one than the other two. They weren't dead, perhaps, but they were in no position to bother anyone else.
The gentlemen took the opportunity to float noiselessly away. Bye-bye!
Warren Worthington III
Warren stood there for a moment, wings flared out, a glower directed at the henchmen on the ground to be certain they were going to stay down.
By the time he looked up to direct his attention back to the gentlemen, they were gone, and a flight around the neighborhood trying to find them turned up nothing. He had excellent vision during the day, but at night, a cluster of gray-faced men wearing black was all too easily lost against the darkness of the night sky.
He frowned, circled around one more time, and then shook his head and resumed his aerial patrol.
Tara Maclay
Tara sat cross-legged on her bed, bent over a small stack of spellbooks. There wasn't much that seemed applicable, but she was diligently taking notes, and the chapter on "Spells of Speech and Silence" seemed like it might be at least a little bit useful...
Or not. Right then she was going with "not."
She was so intent on her books she didn't notice the silent, bone-white men in suits drifting by outside.
Karla
Who the Hell is Hecate and why would I want to implore her aid? Karla scrawled, showing Tara a page from the book she was reading. Also brutally butchering the pronunciation, at least in her own mind. This seems like a recipe for a Healing poultice and a prayer book, more than, you know...spells.
Tara Maclay
Tara raised her eyebrows, reached for a mythology reference book she kept handy, opened it to H, and passed Karla the page on Hecate.
She helps witches, she wrote while Karla was reading. That's just what spells look like here. Not sure that one is any good, though. Yucky ingredients.
Karla
That was an incredibly useful article. Very pertinent to the subject at hand. Really.
Karla glared down at the books she had in front of her. Nothing she was finding seemed all that helpful. She'd put bookmarks in place near the spells that had seemed like they might come close to being about silence or regaining sound, but she couldn't try any. They all had incantations and other verbal components.
This was getting them nowhere fast.
Karla
Karla...really wasn't feeling the books tonight. But last weekend's escapades weren't far enough away to justify going out and deliberately courting trouble, so here she was. Studying.
Studying books that talked about a magic completely unlike her Craft. Eesh.
Is anyone getting anywhere? she wrote, more to stop rereading this one paragraph written in...Wiccan, maybe?...than because she thought anyone had anything new to say.
'Say' being a joke, of course. Sigh.
Edited at 2012-12-07 02:06 am (local)
Raven
Raven hadn't found anything useful so far in the book she was looking through, except maybe a spell that promised an improved singing voice, but it presumed that there was an actual voice to begin with.
At the same time, she was trying to keep an empathic ear out for any sudden burst of joy that might mean someone had gotten his or her voice back. So far it seemed nothing but the same unhappiness and confusion.
Loki Laufeyson
Did Loki want to hit the books? Oh, you.
You would be lucky that you could pry him away from them even if they didn't find a cure for all of this. B
ecause, as we all know, knowledge is power. And he wanted to be the most powerful god ever.
Ever.
[OOC: Preplayed with many amazing people. NFB, NFI. Post 2 of ?]