ic Run With the Devil('s Advocates)

[Electra]

"These guys are f---ing worst," Raina muttered, trying like hell to shake off the cloying, rotting, tired feeling of magic settling over her. She was able to do it, and so was Merlin, but only just. "We better get out of here." She shot out another long lick of fire, grabbing the unattended motorcycle and flinging it like a giant, unwieldy frisbee at the other two bikes. It skidded across the road in front of them, raising a truly impressive shower of sparks, but didn't come near to actually hitting them. Raina said a few more bad words, then flew a good distance away with Merlin clinging to her shoulder.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

With the now wrecked and burning bike crashing before him, Angel stepped off his bike without a word. He walked towards some of the people that had been knocked out by whatever Buddy had done. He picked up a young girl, maybe eight years old. She was out cold, some cold sores starting to appear on her face, as Angel held her up, his hand around her neck. "No more tricks, firestarter. Show yourself, or the girl is dead."

 

"It ain't that easy ta get me! C'mon, ya wanna make all these people starve, eh? C'mon up outta the ground!" The Born Loser was practically cackling to himself as he continued to swerve and turn on his bike, doing his best to stay out of Ghost's touch. Not easy, given he was underground, but he did his best.

 

Cueball growled as he stepped up next to Angel, switching his axe to hold it with both hands.

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

Ow.

 

It was like a knot in Casper's stomach. Like... he was just starting to feel hungry. He could really use a hotdog right about now...

 

Was that the guy he was chasing? Maybe. He'd kept up, at least. And he pulled down and... got him.

 

Both the Born Loser and his bike was pulled into the ground, stuck, struggling to get free, with Ghost appearing in front of him and reaching out to touch his forehead. The moment he made contact, the Born Loser jerked about, then fell to the side, unconscious.

 

"That good enough?" 

 

But what was the guy in the skeleton getup going on about? Killing the girl?

 

Yeah, that was not going to happen.

[Electra]

"Shit," Raina muttered. Forcing a close-in encounter would not serve her well, but letting a hostage die looked pretty bad one one's heroic Permanent Record. Pulling the mirror from her pocket, she scrubbed her fingers over it quickly as she hummed, imagining herself as something less invisible, but very different. When the invisibility dropped, she was not a college-age witch on a broom, but rather a massively-built superhero, Centurion-on-steroids type, in a matte black costume and mask with deep red flames imprinted all over it. There was no broom in sight, and anywhere a monkey might have been was concealed by a billowing black cape.

 

"Firestarter?" she asked mockingly, her voice deep and resonant like it came from a chest much larger than her own. "Trust me, I finish all my fires. Gotta say I'm surprised to see one of the Devil's Advocates hiding behind a little kid. I guess riding on that cheap little bike for too long rubbed the balls right off you. Even that hairless little pissant managed better than that." Raina-the-hulk turned her attention to Born Loser. "I don't even have to ask about you; using that goddamn stupid axe to take out empty minivans while the folks with powers are fighting. You're nothing but a couple of cheap low-powered wannabes pretending they're a big bad in a city that eats little shrimp like you for breakfast."

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Angel froze for a second, staring at the large super hero. Whatever he had expected, this didn't seem like it. His grip on the girl remained, his eyes seemed to glow behind his mask and Sparkler would feel cold, like someone just walked over her grave. "Kill him."

 

His axe raised high above his head, Cueball let out a blood curling scream as he threw himself forward, swinging it straight down towards Raina's shoulder with all of the fury that he could muster.

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

Huh. That was not what she looked like just before.

 

Casper paused, just for a second. Some kinda trick? Was she really a witch or something like that? 

 

Didn't really matter. The skeleton guy had a kid. 

 

Casper wasn't going to let him get away with that. 

 

Flying through the concrete, silent and out of sight, he reached up to touch Angel, ever so slightly...

[Electra]

Raina gulped when Cueball leapt for her, bringing up an arm instinctively to block the attack. The long handle hit her hard enough to numb her arm to the elbow, but at least the wicked sharp head failed to connect. Luckily for her, the hand that arm was attached to was still full of a fireball, which she cheerfully applied to the villain's hair when he reached the apogee of his leap. "Is that the best the Devil's Advocates can do?" she laughed, the noise booming out derisively. "Shiny eye tricks and a moron with an axe? Go back to hell and ask your sugar daddy for 'just a little bit of power, pwetty pwease?" The deep-voice falsetto range was hard to pull off, but Raina considered herself an artist of making people mad. Now where the hell was that ghosty guy and why wasn't he saving the kid? 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"The hell?" Angel stared at Ghost's hand as it poked out of the concrete. His eyes glowed as he stared down at the hand and Ghost felt an icy chill running through his entire body. Angel's grip on the girl's neck tightening. She woke up and started screaming.

 

Cueball was thrown into the water by the fireball, probably the only thing that kept him from burning even longer. With another roar he leapt out of the water at the flying hero, swinging his axe and... missing by a mile, crashing into the ground in front of Angel.

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

What the hell? 

 

Casper felt... off. Whatever the guy was doing, whatever that look was doing to him, it just didn't feel right. He felt like someone walked on his grave, and... no. He couldn't stop. Skeleton guy had a girl.

 

Ghost floated out of the ground in front of Angel. He smiled under his mask. "Wait for it..."

 

And there it was. The moment the second shock from his touch hit, Ghost dove forward, towards the girl. He was slow. He was sluggish. Couldn't quite shake that weird feeling. But it didn't matter. He had to get the girl away.

 

Stretching his arms out, he caught around the girl and pulled her through the skeleton guy's grab, ghosting her alongside himself. The moment she was free, they were gone, erratic glowing white-blue energy trailing behind them, bouncing around the area at lightning speed before appearing far away from Angel and Cueball.

 

"I got her! Blow him away!"

 

[Electra]

Raina let loose another fireball, which was countered basically on accident with the way Angel was weaving drunkenly back and forth. That was just plain annoying. If the jerk wasn't going to cooperate and just pass out already, she was going to have to hold both their attention a little longer. That wasn't great in terms of not getting hit by a jackass with an axe again, but she'd deal. "Well now this is just plain pitiful," she commented, looking down on the two villains. "Maybe if you both hold each other up, you can sort of limp along home together." The suggestion was mock-solicitous, emphasis on the mocking. "You haven't had any luck at all with anything else you've tried tonight, might as well try running away." 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Gra... Kill..." Angel struggled to move, to grab the child that Ghost had pulled away from him. He was obviously in pain from whatever Ghost had done to him, struggling to move, struggling to attack someone, to do something, anything.

 

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP!?" Cueball was obviously more than a little pissed off. He might be hurt, but he wasn't about to let that stop him from throwing his glowing axe towards the flying super hero in front of him and... throwing it way off course, sending the axe spiralling out of control in a wide arc before flying back towards his hand once more.

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

The chaotic blue and white light still zigzagging all around Ghost, he smiled behind his mask at the girl. She couldn't see it, of course. Or his eyes. Or... just about anything but his white and grey costume. 

 

"Hey, don't worry sweetie, you're alright now." He looked over the girl's shoulders and was suddenly happy she couldn't see his eyes. "Go find your mom dad. Don't worry, I'll make sure he won't hurt you again."

 

Then he was gone, chaotic white and light blue energy bouncing around the area, before rematerializing into Ghost in front of Angel, crouching underneath him.

 

"Nope. You're not getting away from hurting kids, Boneface." 

 

Ghost moved up, stretching his right arm and ghosted his hand through Angel's face.

[Electra]

Raina was getting very, very, very tired of these guys. She hadn't liked them from the start, she'd liked them less when they'd started throwing around clouds of pestilence and grabbing kids, and now she just wanted them to go away. It had not escaped her attention how bad she was at getting them to go away, either. That was... possibly a concern. She hadn't been doing a lot of crimefighting, per se, since she got out of high school, that was something she tended to leave to the nutjobs who liked to do it, but she had sort of thought that if she needed to, she could still throw down. She was torn between going to Erik and asking for a lot more pointers and hoping like hell that he never, ever heard of this night from anyone so she didn't have to die of embarrassment. 

 

Anyway, one left and he was practically unconscious on his feet. She could at least mop up. Taking the time to aim properly for once, she lined up her shot and hummed as she flicked another bright orange fireball in his direction. It hit, just like it was supposed to, flamed merrily, and... nothing. The guy looked maybe a little more singed. "Are you goddamned freaking kidding me?" Raina demanded of the sky, not even bothering to use her disguise voice. 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Angel froze completely when Ghost's hand passed through him, then fell on his back with a loud *THUD*.

 

"Stop setting me on fire you ¤%&#!" Cueball was burning. Again. And still standing, despite it all.

 

He slapped his arms, trying to put out the fire while he continued to curse up a storm. His axe came flying back towards him, hitting the ground and getting stuck.

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

Good, good. Another one down, and that just left... the guy with the big weird axe that just wouldn't go down no matter how much he was set on fire.

 

Lovely.

 

"C'mon, man. All your buddies are down. How about you just give up?" 

 

No?

 

Right, Casper figured he wouldn't go for that anyway.

 

Flying forward, he cursed himself as he missed the guy. How could he miss someone at that size from way up close, anyway?

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Cueball was set on fire.

 

Again.

 

"STOP! WITH! THE! %¤/%¤(/&(¤/%##! FIRE!" 

 

Somehow, he was still standing, despite being set on fire over and over again. And somehow, he was only getting more and more pissed off.

 

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

Ghost paused for a moment, looking at the burning man in front of him, then back to the big flying super hero with the cape and sixpack and everything.

 

"I think you should keep setting him on fire." 

 

Moving in, he touched Cueball's chest, causing him to groan in pain. Good, good. A hit, not really stopping him or anything, but...

 

"Geez, man. What're they feeding you?"

[Electra]

"Yoo-hoo, up here," Raina called, still invisible. The moment that Cueball looked up, she used a long whip of fire to fling Angel's motorcycle high overhead and bring it crashing down, right on the sole remaining villain! It did... nothing. "This is by far the stupidest thing that has ever happened," Raina muttered. Merlin chittered agreement and informed her that the STAR Squad was en route. "Great, they'll probably hurt themselves laughing and then we'll have that to deal with." Annoyed, she ignored her fellow hero's attempts to deal with the apparently invincible villain and began dropping the Advocates' motorcycles off the boardwalk and into the water. It would prevent escape and make reoffending more difficult, plus she was just that petty. 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Wha?" Cueball looked up, raised his arms up in front of himself, and was then knocked back a few feet when the burning motorcycle collided with him.

 

"You..." Cueball's words were slurred by now. "You little..." He really seemed to have trouble even talking by now. "Gonna... gonna ¤%&# you up an'..." 

 

And then, finally, something seemed to just glitch inside him and Cueball fell over, face first into the ground... just as the STAR Squad arrived...

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

What the hell was this guy even made of? It was insane. The other guy was setting him on fire, Casper was throwing everything he had at him, and he just kept going and going. Whatever had given these guys powers did their best job on the hairy guy with the axe.

 

He waited, just a second... ghosting through someone tended to leave a bit of a lasting effect, it should hit any time now... any time, please and...

 

Then he fell over. 

 

"Oh god, finally."

 

Moving up out of the ground, Ghost looked around. At least everyone around them seemed to be recovering by the time the bikers were down, so... that was good, at least.

 

He looked up at the hero, giving him a thumbs up. "Hey, nice job. I guess his secret weakness was bikes, huh?"

[Electra]

It took another minute before Raina was finished privately gloating over her victory over the motorcycles, if nothing else. She dropped her invisibility and put herself in the actual costume she used, black leggings under a short black dress covered in sprays of rhinestone sparkles, with a black domino mask and pointed witch's hat. She spiraled down on her broom and looked contemptuously at the fallen villains. "Looks like he had a weakness to being a moron," she countered, using disdain for Cueball to cover the embarrassment over her own performance in the fight. She hadn't realized how rusty she was, and it was real bad. Without her disguise up, the black and blue spreading over her arm from the axe handle was visible even in the streetlights. 

 

Next to her, Merlin opined that the villains of the day probably didn't have much of a credit rating to speak of, but it couldn't hurt to be thorough. Raina obligingly lifted her phone and took photos of four faces only a mother could love before they were hauled away by the STAR squad. 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

By the time the STAR squad arrived, Raina and Merlin was finished taking their pictures. With a few gruff greetings to Ghost and Sparkler, they began hauling first the four enhanced bikers and later everyone that Ghost had managed to catch with his first trick, with him having to go around and help getting them loose one by one.

 

The STAR squad left as abruptly as they had arrived, sparing little time for chatting with the heroes or asking, well, anything about what the bikers could do, but at least they hauled them in separate vehicles instead of all in the same one.

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

"Maybe. Didn't seem like the brightest of the bunch, at least."

 

Casper groaned as he saw the man that stepped out of the first STAR squad vehicle... O'Brian. Of course it had to be O'Brian. That guy did not like Casper's work, at all. Not that Casper really blamed him, it couldn't be fun getting stuck trying to get people out of walls or the ground all the time.

 

People were still keeping some distance around them, so there was that, at least.

 

Once he had helped and the cars were moving, he turned back to the with with the domino mask... and. Wait. How old was she? Older than when he started but... christ, she couldn't have been more than a couple of years when he first started out. 

 

"You alright? That bruise looks kinda nasty."

[Electra]

"Hmm?" Raina had gotten preoccupied enough watching the bad guys get hauled away and listening to Merlin cackling over what he was going to do with them online that she'd sort of forgotten the other hero present. Good situational awareness, Talya would be very proud. She ran a hand quickly over her bare arm, hiding it under an illusion of unmarred skin. "Yeah, yeah, no problem." Up close this guy looked kind of familiar, like somebody who she'd seen or heard of before, but she hadn't been great about memorizing the lists of Freedom City heroes and villains that Claremont students were supposed to know about. "Good job, you know, kicking everybody's asses," she offered. "What the hell did you do to them, anyway?" 

[RocketLord]

GHOST

 

Huh, neat trick. Boom presto, and the bruise was gone? Or maybe not? She seemed like a magic type with that whole witch getup, so really, who knew but her?

 

Ghost grinned under his mask. "Ghosted 'em. Or ghost through them, for some of 'em." He took a step to the side, passing halfway into a parked car and made a ta-daaa motion with his hands. 

 

"Useful little trick, stops most people, but, y'know. I kinda felt like they weren't most people."