"Heh, see you when I see you then." Jackson smirks, before turning back to his men. Psychana finds Infinity on a rooftop, the man doing a hero pose and donning a good impression of a person who doesn't arrange for time with escorts from gangsters. "Ah, Psychana! I've heard good things about you. Maybe I should have taken you with me to the Dark Dimension instead of putting you on the Duke case - it sounds like you've grown powerful enough to handle high tier threats like that." If the man knows her secret, he doesn't show it.
Spoiler: Combat Roll D100: Vanessa: 51+10 Villain: 66 Damage: 5 Vanessa HP: 64 The fight turns out not to be nearly as easy as either of them expected, with Vanessa not able to land clean on the speedster and inflict the true damage her power represents, but neither is he able to strike her with strength, opting instead for small strikes that sting but don't seriously impede her. "The longer you make me wait now..." He says, in between lightning fast attacks, "...The longer I make you beg, later."
Jenny scoffed at Infinity's compliment. "I'll bet you've heard good things about me." before her demeanor turned accusatory "Is that why you sent me after Duke? Because you didn't think I'd find anything? Tell me Infinity, just how deep are you in with Dylan Duke?"
"After I knock you out, and hand you to the cops, you can wait a few years more." Vanessa replied, ignoring the stinging pain as she tries to get a sense of how he moves. He's still aiming to use that leash. I just have to make him think I'm getting impatient. She thinks to herself, as she moves from quick jabs, to full swings. Figuring how he'll use the oppurtunity to aim for her collar. Vanessa uses her wide swing to feint into a roundhouse kick aimed for his head.
"What?" Infinity's eyes go wide. "I'm not in with Dylan Duke at all." He says in surprise, not having expected this from her. "I've been lulling him into a false sense of security - pretending to side with him against the other gangs, while I go after them all."
His excuse would have sounded plausible except for one part. "Right... is that why you choose to make use of his whores?" Ironically Jenny felt no shame, guilt or embarrassment that she'd just called herself a whore.
Spoiler: Combat Roll D100: Vanessa: 77+10 Villain: 91 (Crit) Damage: 4+10 (Crit) Vanessa HP: 14-53=39 The villain sees the attack coming, dodging around behind her to kick out her legs from under her. As she lands on the ground, he taunts. "I'm amazed you're still so cocky, given what's coming."
"Nngh!" Groaning as she falls to the ground, Vanessa rolls away to get some distance, "I already told you, things won't be the same as before." She growled, realizing she couldn't match his speed. "Now!" She exclaims to no one, hoping the speedster would think she had back-up. Once he looks away, even for a split second, Vanessa uses her full strength to lunge toward him, aiming for a full powered punch right onto his chest.
"Easy there." Amethyst Heart said with laugh. "You are going over the board - with that much alcohol you will soon drop uncouncious~" She chuckled, as she turned to Erik. "Congratulations - you tried them well." She took a sip. "What do you think of their performance?" She asked.
"What?" His eyes go wide. "How do you know about that?" Infinity frowns. "No, it's because I'm trying to get a look at his client list. It's well known that Duke provides women to the most powerful men in the city, but getting solid proof of who he's working with has been impossible so far - and so we don't know how far corruption extends. Besides, I have to lull the man into a false sense of security - he's not going to trust me if I'm acting like a virtuous hero all the time. He's not stupid - he has to see me as someone who's not totally heroic, someone who'd make that compromise, or he'll never slip up and give me something I can bust him." Infinity narrows his eyes at her. "But seriously, how did you find that out? Duke's client list would be one of his most heavily guarded secrets - I've never seen it before."
Sonata slowly walks towards the bay, waiting for the pale giant to overtake him in the hallway. Once he's behind the Broken Sickle lieutenant, Sonata draws his karambits and jumps into action, attacking the clawed man.
Azura decided now would be a good time to strike, while Chen's men had not yet noticed her. She chose to use Scatter Bolt, a simple area-of-effect spell that would fire two dozen unguided magic missiles at the target area, each one about as weak as a low-caliber gun round but not causing any physical wounds, unlike actual bullets. Regular humans would get knocked out, leaving behind only any supers Chen had brought along. (Sorry for the uninspired post, but being sick makes it difficult to write.)
After listening to Infinity's explanation, Jenny grew embarrassed. It was plausible and she began to see that perhaps she had jumped to conclusions and overreacted. Whatever angry that she'd held onto through the drug in her system and the idol in her had faded and her expression turned sheepish. "I-I'm sorry." she apologized. "That explanation makes sense. I'm sorry I doubted you." Psychana opened her moth to speak but didn't know what to say, she was too embarrassed. She didn't want to reveal the truth, but if they were going to keep working together she had to approached their partnership with an open had. Especially after accusing him of something that he might not be guilty of. She also rationalized that if she revealed who she was, they may just be able to skip their later appointment and tell Duke that they had covering for both of them. "Y-your appointment in a little bit... the one with Jenny Foxx-" she started after finally finding her voice. "I'm Jenny Foxx."
Spoiler: combat Roll D100: 34+10 Villain: 31 Villain's HP: 40 Caught off guard, the speedster falls backwards, hitting one of the machines as he's hurled backwards by her pure kinetic force. Lighting arcs from the metal device, and it starts to rumble.
"Come on, have another drink!" One of the boys grins and refills her glass. Erik smiles, before narrowing his eyes at the new heroes. "They need more training together - we can't expect you to always be there to coordinate them in every fight. They need to practice being a team."
Spoiler: Surprise Attack Roll D100: 63+10 (Skill)+10 (Surprise)=83 Villain Defence Roll: 5+10 (Supernatural Resilience)=15 Blade Damage: 68+10 (Enhanced Weapon)-10 (Ineffective weapon type)=68 Villain HP: 32 The big man is completely unprepared, as Sonata leaps onto his back, karambits slicing through muscle and flesh as he slashes him again and again. His ill-fitting suit provides little protection, cut to ribbons as he carves up the man's back. Despite slicing open several organs, however, Sonata notes that the guy is neither dead nor dying, as one would generally expect. He roars in anger, throwing Sonata off of him and facing the hero, looking like some sort of wild animal about to pounce. Despite not being able to kill the guy, he's certainly feeling the pain from his mangled back.
(Don't worry about it. Take it easy) "What the?" Chen doesn't have time to complete his sentence as the sunroof of the mahjong parlor crashes inwards and Azura's bolts slam forward, incapacitating his bodyguards. Spoiler: Surprise Attack Roll D100: 29+10 Defence: 69 As his men go flying, Chen looks around, confused and unharmed. In front of him steps a scantily clad woman, dainty hand outstretched, and in front of them Azura sees a shimmering distortion in the air - a force field that blocked her attack. "That was not the best decision you've ever made, I assure you." She chuckles, and Azura recognises her voice from the hotel - the one who walked out.
"Huh, what?" Vanessa gasped at the machine started to... activate? Or was it malfunctioning? Either way, she doesn't waste her chance as this time she goes on the offensive if the speedster looks away from her even for just a split second.
Infinity's expression softens. "That's alright - under the circumstances, I can see why you'd think I'm dirty. After all, the point is to make Duke think I'm dirty, so if I fooled you, I guess it's going well." He chuckles softly. "Oh..." His eyes widen as he realises what she means. "You mean you're...? I knew you'd infiltrated Duke's organisation... A woman as beautiful as you, I guess I should have expected that." He puts a hand on her shoulder. "Not that I'm judging - I'm doing exactly the same as you, after all, making compromises for the greater good." The hero is quiet for a moment, then starts talking again. "I wasn't aware - Duke never told me your name or showed me a picture. He just assured me he was sending me his best girl - 'one of the most needy sluts he's ever had'. I guess you're doing a great job fooling him - how're you doing it? Some sort of psychic trick? Implanting false memories and making him think he had sex with you? I'd love to see the look on his face when he realises he's never even touched you." He chuckles, seemingly thinking that Jenny's all too real depravity is just a ruse.
Psychana chuckled with Infinity, but hers was born from nervousness. While a telepathic false memory probably would have been desirable in her situation she doubted that when she started this mission she had the skill or power to pull such a thing off. But now, added by the drug perhaps... "Trade secret I'm afraid." she avoided the question with a sly smile before her expression turned serious. "I'm glad to hear that Duke thinks so highly of me. Hopefully the next time we meet I'll have some more information for you. As it is, the only real client he's sent me to meet is a local judge. Holness is his name. They were negotiating a deal regarding which local criminals Duke would turn in for prosecution while Holness would look the other way on Duke's activities. I uh- I didn't get the names they were discussing though." With the information she had delivered, Jenny's expression became a little impish. "Again I'm sorry about the accusation. I was out of line. If that's all for tonight, I think I should get home. I trust you'll rave to him about a job well done?"
