Shofet

The Penitent winced, as the pain seared through his mind, and on instinct, his head jerked back, and then slammed forward, pulling the Illusionist up against the hard keratin as it slammed into her face. He looked down at her. "Now you might not believe this, but headbutting you in the face was not actually my intention. Listen, everything aside, is this really what you want? Damnation in return for just a little power here on Earth for only a little while? Eternity is a long time, kiddo. You might want to reconsider before you make yourself a permanent slave to the devil. No Earthly power is worth that." He looked around at the other fallen opponents, and a pang of guilt surged through him. This was exactly what he wanted to avoid. He didn't want to hit kids, even if they were almost adults. They deserved so much better than this... What was it that made them go rogue? Did power really do that to people? He imagined they had been in powerless situations themselves and this was perceived as some sort of improvement. But maybe they really were just... No, he couldn't let himself think that way. People were, in fact, basically good.

Veronica looked up at the King of Suits, nodding slowly. "Well, alright... It was all just minor thugs, really... Made men at times. Vic the Shark was the first one. When they found him no one could bear to look at the crime scene for too long. Someone had... well, they took his heart. Violently. Probably the only person that really mattered, too... He didn't live anywhere near here, of course. Lived down in the Fens... In an apartment building. The Polanski building if I remember right. Third floor or something." ~~~~ Marlow pulled himself along the floor, spitting blood as the phone rang out. Every moment he moved was agony, broken class in his legs, his broken ribs screaming at him and his eyes swelling fast. He dragged himself to his feet, holding onto consciousness as he pulled the phone off the hook, coughing up another tooth. "If this is who I think it is... You might have company." He swayed, bracing against the wall. "I'm bleeding pretty heavily. Our friend came in with questions... Started wailing on me wh-wh..." He almost faded into unconsciousness. "when... When I wouldn't speak. I had to tell them something or they'd kill. Oh, and another thing?" He coughed harshly. "Our friend is definitely not Bram, 'less Bram suddenly got half a foot shorter and became a lady when we weren't looking."

Okay, while we wait on Tiff to make her roll, for Rav

1d20+6=24 Dang, just one more and he would have avoided that bruise. Oh well.

1d20+10=17 I'm not sure if that hits or not with the dodge bonus and -4 from being pinned, so I'll sit on my hands until I get a reponse on that. If he does hit, DC26 Toughness save.

Alright, Tiff and Rav, make a -8 notice check.

Calling all TKs, I'd like Lucy's input on all this.

Still looking for people?

The Penitent's eyes darted among the people, picking out a target. Finally, his eyes locked onto the Moroccan woman. He surged forward, first his hand extending to grab the wrist holding the dagger, before he put his free hand on her shoulder, forcing her to the ground and landing on top of her, hoping to keep the sorceress out of comission for just a little while. "Now, I may just be ignorant, but I'm pretty sure allying yourself with the forces of Hell counts as shirk, you know?" He smirked "Now I get how you could make a mistake about that. You get a letter offering you the chance to get a free toaster, turns out you have to sell your soul to get it, but your old toaster broke and you really needed this one, so before you know it you're allied with Iblis and are working for evil. It happens to everyone once in a while." He laughed to himself. "Now, before you tell me I am annoying or obnoxious, I already know. I consider it my best trait."

1d20+6=21 Well dang. He's bruised.

Starting a grapple on the illusionist. 1d20+10=15 Well, that's no good. Gonna spend a hero point, though. And I reroll -- 1d20+10=19 and since that is a hero point roll, that becomes 29 instead. So I pass. And now for the grapple. 1d20+20=30 Hopefully that succeeds.

1d20=14 Got a 14 for the Penitent's initiative.

Veronica nodded slowly. "Yeah, well... Just some minor members really. Made men. Some muscle, and a few movers. Umm... Rick O'Ferrel was the first one to go down. Just a normal fixer, really. He was a big guy, too. Not very pleasant, but he wasn't paid to be pleasant. Still, you'd never suspect him to die in a fight like he did. Apparently he went down in seconds. Crushed neck. Same sort of stuff happened to the others. We lost like, a dozen men over a few weeks. Colm was scared as all heck. He knew about the Penitent, apparently." She leaned in. "She never trusted the guy. Regardless of what Colm did... He was a Catholic. Said it was only a matter of time until the demon turned on us. Still, I never saw a man pray as hard as Colm when they said that a demon was offing our guys. He even went to confession for the first time in years. He was absolutely certain it was the Penitent too..." She sighed. "Of course, he was right..." Tears welled up in her eyes. "It started getting worse. The ways they were dying were getting worse..." ~~~~~ Moshe rubbed his chin. "Chico was a minor boss with delusions that he was gonna run the city. Always looking for the big break, a way to getta leg up on the other bosses. Shot up a few places for protection money. A lot of loanshark deals, but could never muscle in. Made Chico angry, and he took it out on his victims. Pretty nasty piece of work, really. Had quite a few folks put in the ER, or worse, killed. We had finally got a warrant for his arrest after he blew it on an attempted murder. Turns out he lost his temper with his lady-friend and tried to put her in the ground. She outran him and called 911. We arrested." He looked up at the lamp. "But yeah, the demon ran. Said something about "needing to cut out the infection", assume they were referring to Chico."

Veronic shook her head, and put out her cigarette. "No to all of'em. It was just so sudden. Sure, some minor members of the organisation and others were disappearing, but we didn't think whatever was doing this would go to the top. Normally no one ever does... Not like Colm and his friends hadn't dealt with supers before... But this was different." She sighed. "One night, he was fine... he had taken me out to dinner, we went to bed early, and the next morning he had been torn out of his bed, and thrown onto the train tracks... At least, I think that's how it happened. There's very little left to identify after something like that." ~~~~ "The Penitent thing, huh?" Moshe said, sounding weary. "I never said it was him, that was some others. I just said he looked like a demon." He wiped his brow. "But the night it happened, I was helping escort a minor crime boss, Chico Aguerra. I was with Lothian that night, and we were in our patrol when we were stopped by this thing." He looked up at Anette. "He told us to hand over Chico for judgement, and I said no, he wasn't the law. I knew it was the guy who had been knocking these guys off, too, and I wasn't going to let Chico over to be executed. Well, this guy, he didn't like it. He had a very strange voice, sounded like it was forced. Like a kid trying to sound like his dad. Told me that if I didn't hand Chico over, I was aiding and abetting." He gritted his teeth. "Rather than deal with this jerk, I decided to go full speed out of there. The patrol car moved fast enough but this guy was easily moving 200 and we could only go up to 180. He flipped the car, but I had called for back up earlier and some squadcars showed up. Seemed enough to scare him off. I and Chico were lucky, there were only minor injuries. Lothian... Was essentially living pudding after that. Healing up, though. Shame that Chico got caught in the end anyway... Bad man, but no one deserves to be dropped from that height like that."

In your attempts to find it, you fail. It obviously doesn't want to be found, just yet. EDIT: SC, you find exactly what the girls did -- nothing. These guys are essentially wearing rags.

The Penitent made sure not to look at anyone directly, and try to seem more like something you'd pull out of Hell, all aggression and malice. He sincerely hoped that there was a portion of Hell where creatures really did dress like he did at the moment, because otherwise this would all go South very, very quickly. He had to bite back the urge to help Nick up, and then chastised himself. Dangit, you don't know if they can read yer th-- Oh, crud. Uhhh... Raaarrr. Malice. Demonic hate. Dang that God guy. Totally hate him. Not thinking anything suspicious at all. Definitely not... Hopefully, they couldn't read his mind, as he was definitely hoping to help these kids over hospitalising. Still, something nagged in his mind. What made all these kids do this? Why would they give up all their immortal soul, their decency, and their ability to live safely for just a little power? Was it really that common for people to just sell-out everything they were? He had thought better of humanity.

Veronica looked at King of Suits, tipping down her sunglasses. Her icy blue eyes met his, and she grimaced slightly. "Here to talk about Colm, huh?" She took a long drag on her cigarette, blowing out a long stream of smoke. "I suppose I could talk to you about it. What do you wanna know?" Her voice was drained, and without interest, as she had obviously given all the answers to reporters she was willing to give, but she gave King of Suits another glance over, and then put out her cigarette. "Hey, shouldn't you be dancing on Colm's grave? People like you hated him." Interest had entered her voice, and perhaps, just a little bit of hope. ~~~~~~ Moshe looked between the two of them, then gave an exaggerated shrug. "Sure, why not? Come in." He lead them through his front hallway to a very nice living room with a glass coffee table and a couch, as well as a rocking chair for himself. He didn't take a seat though. "I'll answer anything you like. But, uh, would you like anything to drink, first?"

The McFeery's were a very big criminal organisation, and aren't just limited to freedom. Mostly, they're found in Massachusett's, but they've branched out. Colm was well known for being a hard, though he had some positive traits, such as his love of charity, but it didn't excuse his worse ones -- Colm ran many protecting rackets, and while opposing the building of a drug trade in Freedom, had deep hands in prostitution which was known to have very brutal rules and it wasn't too rare an occurrence that prostitutes in Colm's end of the city ended up face down in the street. He also was vicious towards any competition, and would destroy any business that didn't clear things with him first, and sometimes the person running it. His most recent wife was the lounge singer Veronica McFeery, originally something of a small time actress, but having gotten bigger parts on Broadway once she got with Colm. She was just about to make her big break before Colm died, and now interest in her has died down considerably.

The door opened quickly, and a white haired women with intense eyes and little height to her looked up at the two, a frog-like frown on her face. "הלו?" A man quickly limped up behind her, a black eye healing, and hobbling on a cane, though he was obviously young, with the startings of a beard born through neglect of shaving, but the same eyes as the older woman. He had begun to go bald, though he did not try to hide it, and his smile was slightly crooked. "Mummy, please, I'll handle this." The slightest tinge of a New York Yiddish accent hid behind his words as he saw her go back to the living room. "I'm sorry, she didn't say anything... Uh, you know, not right, uh? She's a child of the forties." He looked between the two of them. "So, uh, what brings you here today? You're not like, reporters, are you? Because, I don't like to comment about what happened to the news..." ~~~ Meanwhile, the Penitent had found out where McFeery lived, when he, well, lived, mostly through contacts among people who lived in the area, and maybe just a bit of intimidation of the seedier sorts. It surprisingly brought them to one of the nicer neighbourhoods in Freedom City, and that was severely understating it. It was a waterfront property in what was virtually a mansion, if just a little short of it. Obviously, Colm liked to live highly. Out front was a woman with bleach blonde hair, wearing an orange and white sundress with a large hat to keep the ever-increasing heat from getting to her. A cigarette holder hung from her lips, and though she wore sunglasses to hide it, obviously she had been reeling from some sort of intense distress, and was now in the post-sobbing funk. The Penitent looked at the King of Suits. "I think I should hang back for a bit. She don't seem to be in much of a good mood, and I dunno if my ugly mug would make it any better."

The Penitent blinked. "Something to identify me with? Well, dang... Ummm..." He pulled a small chain from his pocket, and presented it to the group. "Dad's old trick coin. Both sides are heads. I know that, but the guy? No way. So ask him, heads or tails, and if he says tails, well, you'll know it ain't me." He handed the coin to Lucy and smiled. "Now, if you don't mind me saying, we have an imposter to clobber. So we should go on and head out."

"Maybe he only could succeed in killing two of them. Something stopped the guy. I mean, he's killed more, but they weren't big cases. Low level thugs. But these guys... What if they did something to stop? I can't say for Chico, who was obviously intended to be road-pizza, but maybe some of these others... Eh, I dunno." He lit up a cigar, and began to chew on the end. "I don't know who this guy is, but I'm thinking, maybe... Mmm. No. It's stupid." He slumped in a chair. The Penitent looked at him for a few moments, then at the other heroes. "You wouldn't believe how much I appreciate all of your helping me like this. I know I can be aggressive sometimes with the villains, but I'd never kill them, and the fact that you're willing to give me a chance on this... Anyway, before I become a big bowl of mush, I'd just want you to know that I am thankful for this, and I do owe you all one." He nodded. "I'll be glad to go with Marceau. I think I'll have to be bad cop... They won't be happy to see me."

The Penitent nodded to the two of them. "Well, then. If I have to choose, then I'm going deception. I'd really prefer to beat up a few of these kids as physically possible, and well, if we have a way to do that, I'm going with it." He looked down at the boiler room. "Which means we're gonna have to figure out just how to do that, huh? I mean, I look enough like a demon myself, but I don't know if I'll pass for true blue, if you know what I mean." He scratched his chin. "Any ideas from your end, guys?"

The Penitent looked at Starlight. "Shapeshifters? No, I don't think so. I fought vampires, some kids who got into doing deals with Hell, a fool in a suit... No shapeshifters though, I don' think." He folded his arms in thought. "See, I can get aggressive in how I talk with the baddies and stuff, but I don't think any of them would go out of their way to slander me after jus' one meeting. Especially since I don't think any of them had the means to do so, so they'd have to find a way just to do it to spite me, and that seems... weird. I mean, Weissnacht, the suit guy hated me pretty badly, but I don't think he'd devote his life to ruining mine, no matter what I had said to him." Marlow, meanwhile, looked at King of Suits with a quirked eyebrow. "What? Me? Uh, well... I don't got nothing, sadly." "Double negative." "Shut up, Bram. But fine. I don't know what I can really tell you. Um... I only know from the news, sadly. I mean, normally I might have gotten a case about this now, but it's nothing's come my way. Uh... Well, I know Wojcik, the big crime boss is still alive. He's never gonna dance again, but he's otherwise fine, I think. Does that help at all?"

The Penitent nodded grimly, and readied himself to fight. He didn't relish the idea of fighting kids, regardless of how they screwed up, but he understood that once you started freely cohorting with, well, Satan, you might have just crossed a few boundaries and one of them might have been the border into "evil" territory. It wasn't a thought he relished, but some part of him felt forced to except it. "I'm ready whenever you all are," he finally said. "But do you think there's any way we could help these kids? I mean... They're teenagers, right? I mean, I get the whole "they choose their own way" and I know they're past the point of being innocent, but it just seems..." He sighed, and looked up. "Nevermind. I'm just being too sentimental. Ready when you are."

We do indeed. We have a list of several victims, but the most important were, in order of most recent to oldest: Fransisco "Chico" Aguerra (vegetative state) [Crime lord] Kazimierz "Cas" Wojcik (Paraplegic, recovering) [Treasurer for criminal group] Frederick Lothian (alive, though in a body cast) [Police officer] Moshe Edelstein (alive) [police officer] Colm McFeery (dead) [Crime lord] Robert Mayer (dead) [Made man]