Avenger Assembled

March 28, 2009: Jack flies at the airport "In My Dreams, I Fly"

Even with the sun up, it was a ridiculously easy matter for Jack to conceal himself against those few prying mortal eyes nearby. He was on the roof of a hangar near the extreme edge of Jordan International Airport, close by the edge of the property and deep in the heart of a little-used section that was the putative property of the national airline of Vietnam. Few people came out here, which made it perfect for his purposes. After a long, difficult couple of nights as Avenger and as himself, it was worth something to get away alone and embrace solitude. He'd fed that day, the blood of a stranger warm in his belly, and the blood in his system mixed with the darkness cast by the setting sun sent new energy coursing through his dead limbs. I am a vampire, he thought contentedly as he rose to his feet, his footsteps nearly silent as he walked to the edge of the roof, the tarmac some three stories down. And I like it. Lacking the angst of Nightrage or the cowardice of those of his kind unwilling to face their true nature, Jack was content to bask in the knowledge of his immortality. He was earning that immortality now, every night, making up for the sins of his past and digging his way towards a better future. So why does Scarab bother me so much? He stood at the edge of the roof, remembering the acid taste of the woman's blood between his lips. "She shouldn't trust me," Jack murmured aloud, finally, after long minutes of stillness. "I'm not to be trusted." Maybe telling her had been a mistake. Heru-Ra had spent so much time as a hero that perhaps it was difficult for the immortal champion to know what it was to be other than a man. I am not subject to human morality. He thought it, but despite his attempted assurances, he wasn't sure he believed it. It was easy to tell himself that now, when he was alone with himself and the night, the wind in his face. When he was with people, he felt like people. When he was with vampires, he felt like a vampire. What am I? He stepped off the roof, his body collapsing into mist as the night took him. Jack rose higher and higher in the air as he soared above Freedom City, his nearly-invisible body of mist and smoke rippling in the air as the whole wonderful world of the city spread itself out before him. For a few glorious minutes there in the sky he was king of the night, an undead lord of creation floating high above a kingdom full of cattle placed there to serve his whims as a hero and feed his undead lusts. And then the plane hit him. Jack had time to curse explosively as he was sucked into the jet's intake, the sensation certainly extremely disturbing for all that it was harmless, his misty body ejected out the rear of the engine in a few bizarre seconds, hurled away like so much exhaust as the slightly off-course Flight 430 made its way to a safe landing. Jack landed on his butt, shifting back to his regular self, as he just made out Captain Thunder guiding the plane towards its landing. The golden guardian of the skies hardly noticed the vampire on the ground, focused as he was on the plane, and maybe it was better that way. Never a particularly egocentric guy, Jack permitted himself a hard laugh as he rose to his feet, dusting off his butt as he walked towards the fence. "Well, I guess that's humility for you." He laughed again. "Probably for the best that Melinda didn't see that." He'd tasted blood that night and survived going through a jet engine. He was right, he wasn't a man. But that didn't make him a god, either. "I'm a vampire." He walked through the chain-link fence and onto the street, a nearby scream from the airport hotel making him raise his head. Whose work is never done! Dreams were for people who could sleep.

Avenger didn't blink. "The unholy are hurt by the holy. Of all kinds." He steepled his hands before him. "Assumed you would be aware of this. Likely too late to deal with the matter now. Bible may help." He looked from one to the other. "Short version. Tracking a cult. Have stolen variety of holy and unholy magical items. Believe they have plans to resurrect at least one dead entity. Very powerful. Risk is significant. Need to know if you are all willing to risk it."

When the others were gone, and seen to be gone, Avenger pulled up his mask and bit down on the monster's neck, worrying at the vein as he rent it wide open. He made sure it was unconscious first, slamming head back into the floor until it was unconscious for sure. The beast had some trouble recuperating from the beating and the biting, especially once Jack began using his teeth to rend and tear. It was fairly disgusting work, all things considered, but he was sorely hungry after the exertion of the fight and owed some pain to this thing. When he'd drunk his fill and licked his chops clean, Avenger took the liberty of binding the thing with the torn pieces of his cape, watching it closely while he waited for the others. His mask was easy enough to clean up.

In a shocking swerve for those familiar with Avenger's methods, the dark champion of the night actually entered through the front door of the house some twenty minutes after sunset, greeting the others with a "Good. Not owner. Please don't touch." With a peremptory gesture that suggested he hadn't actually gained new people skills in the days since his colleagues had seen him last, Avenger led the others into an empty conference room. "This way. Will explain."Taking a seat at the dusty table, he looked up at the others, emotions hard to read in his icy blue eyes. "Monster threatening the city. Needs to be dealt with. Did you bring holy items?"

Though all this telepathic contact made Jack a little uneasy, he was more than happy to go along with Scarab's plans. With someone else suggesting ideas, it was easier not to feel responsible for all this. Avenger took the boy's right leg in his big hands and began to twist it slowly, putting pressure on the knee joint. Jack has experience hurting people, he doesn't actually twist hard enough to shatter the joint, permanently crippling Vulture. But it's hard enough that Vulture will think he will.

Avenger opted to repay his colleague's binding like for like, throwing himself at Samedi from behind and wrapping his arms around the voodoo god's neck. The dark champion didn't banter with Samedi, instead grunting and straining with him in deadly earnest. Samedi made a bizarre noise of his own as Avenger squeezed, a sound like bones popping coming as he turned his head to look at him. The struggle made the shadows around Nightrival slip, freeing the vigilante from their cold embrace. "Oh, dis is a good one," Samedi laughed malevolently even in Avenger's grip. "Funny!"

I will post to this thread later tonight, I want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to be in on it.

The night lay before Reaver, the Fens active still with that sound of a neighborhood animate even after dark. He could hear noises from inside the nearby theater, the sounds of some tired old bit of vice probably as old as him slithering their way out through the walls. There were derelicts down the parallel street, but they were far too busy with their own affairs of drink and squalor to notice Reaver. The night was full of possibilities.

"Your powers. Describe them. Their origin. Their use. Crimes you have committed with them." Jack saw his own past in the boy, a childhood and youth brutally wasted when there were so many wonders to experience. This young man had happily thrown away everything Jack himself had lost. "Do not lie. Do not omit." He fell eerily silent at that, his gaze boring into Vulture's.

Oh. I didn't know if that would work. Jack hmmed mentally as he stepped through the crowd, circling Elena as he kept a careful distance from her and her Aryan escort. Listen, I know you're on the outs with me right now, but I need your help with something. I need you to make a friend of mine think I've killed you. He paused, his eyebrows furrowing as tension crossed his lovely, chiseled face. Wait, that sounded bad. Mental conversations aren't easy, are they? OK, it's like this. I need to kill the person who read my mis...boss's mind earlier, but of course that's not actually going to work. But if you make my friend think I did find and kill the telepath who read Melinda's mind, it'll all be good.

"All right." Jack rubbed his eyes, thinking fast. "Dave, here's what I want you to do." He leaned close to the other vampire, whispering quietly and intimately. "I want you to check the servants. That's the perfect way to infiltrate a party like this, especially if you have telepathic powers. Check them out as best you can, see if any of them react differently to you. Find me if you find anything, and we'll deal with it. Together." He squeezed Dave's shoulder and added in Slavonic, "No rack for us." When Dave was off, looking quietly fearful behind his mask of vampiric control and detachment, Jack was left with the still-thorny problem of what on Earth he was going to do to get them out of this situation. He leaned against the wall, all sleek detachment, watching as the humans moved. He certainly couldn't kill Elena, but he certainly couldn't go back to Melinda without blood on his hands. HEY ELENA! he 'thought' loudly, wondering if mental connections actually worked like this. Well, if it didn't, at least he'd be no worse off. CAN YOU HEAR ME!?! He moved as he thought, cutting his way through the crowd like a shark through seaweed as he made his way towards Elena and Archeville.

"What are they, sir?" "Don't call me sir," Jack whispered back to Dave, the two vampires speaking in sotto voice as they studied the phalanx of zombies before them. "And they're zombies," he added. "Dead ones, too. You can tell from the way they stand." "Huh." Dave snorted. "I guess they're not the only ones!" Jack and Dave, immaculate in their pressed tuxes, were an odd pair when taken against the shabbily-but-uniformly dressed undead before them. Jack laughed too, though they both kept their voices down. Their mistress and the zombies' master were busy upstairs in the tenement together. What could bring Melinda and Baron Samedi together? With any luck, Jack would find that out later. But for now... "Are you doing all right these nights, Dave? I haven't seen you since, you know, the thing in North Bay." "Doing all right. Night shift at the blood bank is dull and all, but you know, it's nice to have steady work." Dave cast a glance Jack's way. "I'm surprised I don't see you there more often," he opined. "I know how you are." It was a bold thing to say to a superior in the complicated pecking order of vampire society, but in the quiet of a pre-dawn Lincoln alley, there was nobody there to hear. "What, not feeding rough?" Jack waved his hand. "Just because I like people doesn't mean I don't like the way they taste. I mean, jeez, I don't know how you stand living on banked blood all the time. Might as well put you out to pasture." "Just never got a taste for wild." Dave rubbed the side of his neck, frowning a little. "What do you think they're doing up there?" he asked, nodding up at the brightly-lit window visible two stories up. "Look, man, I'm telling you, it's best not to think about. What do you think Melinda would do with someone who actually has necromantic powers?" The two vampire men looked at each other and crossed themselves, something of a blasphemy in the circles of the undead. "Yeah, I guess not. Is guard duty always this...like this?" He waved to the zombies, who continued to stare at them both with flat, dead eyes. It was a bit like being watched by sharks, or ravening birds. "You want to go back to guarding the blood bank full time?" asked Jack, trying to be concilatory for Dave's sake. The man really, really didn't want to be complaining where Melinda could hear him. "Because that wouldn't be too hard." "No, I mean..." Dave shook his head. "I was hoping this would mean more than it does, you know? I'm a free agent, you're a free agent, and we're working for Melinda because she treats us so good." "Freedom isn't something we're going to see a lot of, Dave. Not working directly for Melinda, anyway." Jack rubbed his eyes. "Didn't your sire tell you about this stuff?" "We don't do a lot of talking these nights. He's got his business, I've got mine." Dave didn't quite look at him, and Jack knew that "look" only too well. "I just...I think it would be like this. Being dead." "What, you thought it would be all the parties?" Jack asked, pain-flecked amusement in his voice. "Just the whole undead prince thing, forever and ever?" Dave gave him a look that said Well, yeah! "Me too," he admitted. "But it isn't. It's standing here in an alley while Melinda does God-knows-what up there; it's going out to bust up Grenville so they don't get any funny ideas, it's...you know. Everything." There weren't the words for the hungers and the passions, not in any language Jack knew. "But you know, there are other ways to do what needs to be done..."

Readying an action, just in case. There's no reason why Reaver shouldn't get credit where credit is due in the meantime, though. Given Reaver's high Sense Motive, I'll just come out and say that the guy is totally sincere in his fear and repentance.

"Oh, no! Please!" Alone in the alley, with no one to protect him from the bad guy, the executive begged and pleaded with Reaver. But he evidently wasn't a fool; summoning help in the Fens with cries for help was almost impossible, especially for a well-off man who was by no means a local. He was a normal guy faced with a supervillian, and that was all. Rather than get a beating, or worse, he spilled his guts, backing up against the wall and sliding to the ground. "The code is SWORDFISH, all right? It's my boss's idea of a joke! Please don't hurt me, I have a family! I-" He glanced up at the porno theater they were standing behind. "And...okay, maybe I shouldn't be here. But I will go back home and not go near one of these places ever again. I swear!"

Avenger will not actually kill Vulture, at least not on purpose. But he will certainly make it appear that he will. ;)

"Maybe they left already," said Dave good-naturedly, ever the peacemaker when it came to pleasing his mistress, the three vampires having formed up together in a tight little knot in a far corner of the ballroom, far away from the superheroes outside. "If they saw what you were thinking, maybe they ran away." "Oh, there's a wonderful idea," hissed Melinda quietly. "Straight to a witch-hunter, no doubt." She squeezed the bridge of her pert little nose, murder in her lovely eyes. "All right, here's what we'll do. Much as it...wounds me to be driven away, it is too dangerous for me to be where someone has already read my mind. I will return to the nest." She meant the local one, the bolthole Melinda had set aside for the city's vampires in the region. She looked up at Jack, and went on in Slavonic. "Jack, your place is higher than Dave's. You will take charge of him and find the telepath. And then you will kill them." "But I-" "Don't." Melinda replied. "I am aware of your twee feelings on human life, but they are less than adorable now that we are faced with a crisis. If you do lack the stomach to kill the telepath at this party, then you may let Dave do it. If either of you fail me, I shall see to it that you both suffer the peine fort et dure. Do you understand?" They did, and the two vampires watched as she left. Jack couldn't read Dave's mind, but he could certainly read his own. What am I going to do?

Huh, Reaver actually has enough Notice to spot Avenger. Go ahead and roll your Notice, it'll affect what I'll post. :D

I hope Avenger's most recent action keeps in the tone of the scene, all. It's a bit hard, but no worse than Neal Adams' Batman on a bad day.

"Patience beginning to expire." Avenger grabbed the young man by the left ankle and twisted it until he heard bones crack. "Stop what you're doing." The look of cold menace in his flat blue eyes, the only visible part of his face, was palpable as he stared down at Vulture, his odd, menacing voice a flat, emotionless growl. "Am capable of worse."

Avenger's Initiative is 21

"Appreciate the compliment to my abilities," Avenger replied from the corner of the room, "but have been unable to interrogate yet." Avenger carried the unconscious, battered teen over his shoulder like a ragdoll, the big man hardly stooping before the weight. "Scarab. You have recovered." It was not really a question. "Any new information?"

On a more serious note: how does Elena feel about having her mind messed with? How much is she willing to risk her own secret identity to retaliate at this juncture? How much does she really trust Jack? Similarly: How much is Jack willing to risk to keep Melinda's attention off Elena? What services will Melinda demand from him if he does so? How much does he really trust Elena? And also, we could get more people in here. :D

I suggest a bedroom farce, except with vampires.

"Not in the Freedom League," Avenger informed Divine with a flat, dead tone in his voice. "League objects to my techniques." He clutched his bloody hands into fists, then added, "Team might not be a bad idea. Phone?" His sudden inquiry ended with a glance at the walls all around them. "Cell would have troubles. Perhaps you two upstairs? You seem compatible. I can deal with monster."