Avenger Assembled

"Can search through contacts," Avenger replied carefully. "Name is familiar. Burglar by trade. Meet in the usual place?" he suggested, his voice full of its usual implacable drive. Avenger is not one to look backwards once he's gone forward. "Even with the new guy."

That would be spending the hero point gained from Jack's responsibility complication, spent for inspiration. Jack would like help from a Higher Power on this one. :bow:

It was late when Avenger finally returned to the house, the sun just beginning to set on his wasted day. He had to work fast if he was going to come up with something to show the others; some proof that he was more than just a creepy voice in the dark. Behind the mask as he smoothly slipped into the attic, Jack was acutely conscious of his own monstrosity. How easy would it have been for him to be the monster of Riverside? The thought was shockingly easy; he even had the claws and teeth carefully hidden behind his humanoid guise, not to mention the desire for blood and carnage that never quite faded. Concentrating in the dark in the quiet half-built attic, Avenger opened his mind to the past. I am Jack Faretti. I am a monster. Set a monster to catch a monster...

Jack always preferred the Raven, anyway. Or Lady Liberty, not that he'd admit it now...

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "Listen," he said fiercely, "Whatever's down here, it's not the only predator in the sewers. This is no place for a civilian, especially not with blood in the water. The two of you know how to fight, I already know that. I'll take Michaels up and meet with you later. I can even call in a friend, come back with reinforcements."

Avenger looked up, about to speak, as Nightrival disappeared. He paused a beat when he found the man gone, looking around but seeing no sign of him. "Heh. So that's what that's like." Avenger headed into the darkness, turning a few corners before disappearing into the night entirely. Once hidden sufficiently, Avenger's body broke apart into a thousand fragments of mist, drifting up into the sky as he made his own way very quickly to their mutual destination. Once there, he simply reformed and waited for his companion to arrive, crouched in the shadows of an open stoop. There were definite advantages to working with a partner.

I'm assuming that Nightrival knows as much as Avenger does; all that was for him too. :D

Avenger knew the Ya-Ya Posse as well, if only because Jack watched a lot of TrueTV. Jamaica's gangs in America were loud and violent, heavily armed men carrying out the same bloody struggles on America's streets that they did on their own home turf. They tend to grow fast, burn brightly, and burn out spectacularly, meteors of crime and vice. Freedom's Posse is well-armed, but he'd never heard of them carrying anything more dangerous than an AK-47 or two. "Think I know it too. Which means-" He cracked his forehead against Spaleni's with a noise like a gunshot, sending the already-battered thug to the ground with a groan. "Told him he could walk out. Just not when. Heh." Avenger seemed quite amused with himself. "Meet you there?"

Okay, if I understood Bel's action correctly...there ya go.

Dark Star had a pretty clear view of the demonic smoke inside as it creeps its way up and out of the ventilation system, the gravitic disturbances curving through space-time as it heads away from the library entirely. It was a disturbing experience, really; gravity simply shouldn't operate that way. It seemed that the demonic was as alien and antithetical to the laws of gravity as it was to the other basic, foundational laws of the universe. The important thing, though, was that the demon's flight (and it certainly seemed a demon, especially to Scarab's keen perceptions, who'd fought her share of fiends in previous lives) was by no means a subtle one: the 'damn'd' thing was gone, and in a hurry.

It was a frustrating day for Avenger. As if dealing with the constant, blistering heat of the sun, painfully hot in thick black clothes, isn't enough, complete professional blockade was a deeply irritating experience. In the cool, protective shadow of a rooftop TV antenna, Avenger looked back on the day and his investigation, thinking hard. If that is a real demon in the sky around Riverside, it seems likely he's connected to our murderer. 'Ve no idea how obvious demonic genders are; might be the same. If demons are anything like vampires, even if he's 'innocent', he'll be very interested in dealing with an intrusion on his territory. Hope the others had better luck.

"Good. Starting to worry there." There was a moment of hesitation in Avenger's voice as he spoke, as if he actually had been worried about Nightrival's reaction. In that moment of hesitation, the street sentinel came to a realization about the dark, gritty vigilante standing before him: he was a phony. Oh, it wasn't necessarily that he was a bad guy or actually out to do Nightrival or anyone else on the street harm. But Nightrival's met plenty of people from the street. Avenger is many things, but he isn't one of them. With Nightrival on his team, Avenger took this opportunity to take Spaleni by the collar. "One chance. Give us your supplier, and you walk home tonight." The words were dark and disturbing, and they were evidently enough for Spaleni. The man began spilling out a tale of how his crew was supplied by the Jamacian Invincible Ya-Ya Posse operating out of Kingston Trucking. The posse kept some gunmen on the premises at all times; there were bound to be thugs there even tonight guarding the latest shipments.

And Scarab can make a Notice check too, or a Search one if she's using her ESP. You looky-loo, you. :D

Hmm. Yuki's trying so hard, I feel bad. It does strike me that Ned is not immune to, say, knockback damage...

Sense Motive to not be fooled by Spaleni. And a DC 16 Sense Motive to figure out something interesting about Avenger. ;)

Avenger stared at Nightrival, honest, befuddled incomprehension in his eyes before the hard, cold look returned. "Didn't kill anyone. Don't kill." The look he gave Spaleni suggested he wasn't above seriously considering it, however. "Gave them pain instead. Can't stand on a corner if you can't stand." "C'mon, Nightrival," Spaleni tried to weasel, "you gonna let this crazy SOB take me in? Or you gonna let a real hero do it?"

Okay, I'm going to compress things a bit. I need another Stealth check from Belphegor and another Notice check from Dark Star.

Avenger turned and looked back at the piled bodies behind him, smelled the blood sweet and crisp in the air. He could have killed them all so easily..."Of course I stopped them. I'm Avenger." He slipped the magic knife into his belt as he heard the noise from upstairs, his eyes burning blue balls of pure ice. "Better attend to that. Take the papers. Do what you need to do." His arm is cut, but the folds of his costume as they fall and the blood on his arm hide the fact that the blood isn't his. The dead don't bleed.

"I like his show," Jack admitted under his breath. He strode through the tunnel fearlessly after the fallen host, water sloshing beneath his feet as if he'd been born there. "If anything jumps out at me, I'm trusting you two to take care of it. We need to get him out of here."

We wound up not doing this thread, though some of its content wound up in later ones.

Avenger stared balefully into the hole, Jack thinking irritably about how easy it would be to go in after the thing inside. "Hard to catch him in the tunnel without a flamethrower." Avenger said calmly. "Wouldn't be running if he wasn't scared. Suggest we leave the place and find Lockpick. Hit the alarm on the way out."

Avenger went hunting during the day, staking out the lowest of the low in the Fens before finding a likely-looking drug dealer. Hungry and distracted, he dispensed with the preliminaries: he found a quiet, secluded spot in a dark alley, beat the man into unconsciousness, pulled him even _deeper_ into the alley to feed, and then left him unconscious and battered for his friends to find. That'll keep his friends out of this neighborhood for a while! After that he stakes out Riverside, finding dark alleys even in the brightest of day as he keeps an eye out for his 'friend' the flying demon-guy. The more information he can get before meeting with Scarab, the better.

Aw.... :D

Jack swore suddenly, explosively, his voice tearing through the obscenities of multiple languages as easily as his fists through paper. He shone the light in the direction of the running figure and called, "Roman Michaels! We're here to help you! Run this way!" Jack settled onto the balls of his feet, bending in a predator's crouch as he watched further down the tunnel with the eagerness of a hunting cat.

Hm, that is true. Okay, I'll post in the thread tonight. Could you PM me what the monster looks like?