The Break-In

[Avenger Assembled]

"Greetings, Dark One," replied a cadaverous individual wearing impressive gold mystic seals about his neck and chest. He was absurdly polite, under the circumstances, and eyed Belphegor carefully despite the harried activities of his followers as they ran for the nearby van. "We are under siege by unbelievers," he agreed, hand on his goateed chin as he hmmed thoughtfully. Handing off his bag to a speedy follower, he asked "Bael, I see two options. While I could benefit greatly from your assistance in summoning our dark lord, you could, I wager, be greatly helpful in dealing with our attackers. What would you prefer?" His tone was bizarrely mild, though dark, like one of Hell's middle managers offering a choice of tasks to an evil underling. And Belphegor had ample reason to know about that!

-

Sister Sixtus screamed in indignant rage as she slammed into the ceiling, her staff glowing with unspeakably wicked supernatural power. What looked like just another piece of gaudy mystical trash suddenly proved itself to be far, far more in that terrible moment. Even as she slammed against the ceiling, she screamed a terrible word of death and pain that tore through the air, ripping great mystical holes even in Dark Star's awesome command of the forces of gravity! The gravity broke as she spoke, and she fell again to the earth, fragments of ceiling falling around her as she landed. Dark Star had slammed her into the roof hard, but she'd shrugged it off as if it were nothing. "Not today, bunky!"

[N/A]

When the magical wave hit, The Scarab exhaled suddenly, as if she had the wind knocked out of her. She suddenly stopped hovering and fell onto the floor, landing on her posterior. Her favored automotive projectile plummeted in time with her, crashing to the ground. It's like having your eardrums punctured in the middle of listening to a song. This...this will not do. This will not do at all. She pulled herself up and sprang to her feet, and reached out toward Sister Sixtus, first with her arm, then with her mind. She grabbed toward the staff, and pulled. "You're dealing with powers beyond your understanding, let alone control. Powers that love to consume the lives and souls of the shortsighted and immature."

[Dr Archeville]

"Greetings, Dark One," replied a cadaverous individual wearing impressive gold mystic seals about his neck and chest. He was absurdly polite, under the circumstances, and eyed Belphegor carefully despite the harried activities of his followers as they ran for the nearby van. "We are under siege by unbelievers," he agreed, hand on his goateed chin as he hmmed thoughtfully. Handing off his bag to a speedy follower, he asked "Bael, I see two options. While I could benefit greatly from your assistance in summoning our dark lord, you could, I wager, be greatly helpful in dealing with our attackers. What would you prefer?" His tone was bizarrely mild, though dark, like one of Hell's middle managers offering a choice of tasks to an evil underling. And Belphegor had ample reason to know about that!

Fight a bunch of costumed do-gooders, who may very well kick my scaly butt, or stick with these guys and find out what trinkets and artifacts they have? Well, that's a no-brainer.

"Indeed I could route thy foes with but a flap of my great wings," he said, flexing a bit (and winking at any comely female cultists), "but it suits my interests to give more direct aid to you in your conjurations. You have, I presume, left someone -- or something -- behind to occupy the unbelievers while you make your escape? If so, then let us make haste to your fallback spot, so as to continue the great work as soon as possible."

[Cyroa]

DS blinked as he suddenly flickered and became solid as the strange mystical energy permeated the area. It was only for a moment and then just as suddenly, he was energy again. "Ok...that will just not do!" These crazy looking people were definitely dangerous. No more being gentle. Crazy staff woman needed to go and fast. He moved a little forward and unleashed his Graviton Beam directly at her unleashed his Graviton Beam directly at her. "Surrender evil do-er!" It sounded a little corny perhaps but he was trying to be more heroic...

[Avenger Assembled]

The return of the heroes' powers, relief though it was, proved to have no effect against the churning cauldron of energy that was the mad cultist. Scarab hit cleanly with her telekinesis, actually pulling the staff straight out of the startled woman's hands. "Noo!" she cried, and at her cry black threads of energy came boiling out of the staff, wrapping themselves around her hand and ripping the staff straight out of Scarab's telekinetic grip. Sixtus gained the staff and laughed an evil laugh, only to scream in terror when Dark Star's perfectly-aimed blast struck her square in the face with an awesome eruption of gravitic energy. She went flying backwards, smashing into the rear of the church with a loud crunch. When she pushed herself away from the wall, though, it became obvious that the woman was completely uninjured.

"That didn't hurt me," she said wonderingly as she looked down at the staff, a gleam of malicious madness in her eyes. "I'm...I'm invincible!" She laughed again, an evil laugh as the staff glowed malevolently, casting a diabolical glow of death and pain through the air. The two heroes could see the twisted darkness of the staff's magic interacting with the soul of Sister Sixtus, a legacy of death and pain and suffering and horror that stretched back uncountable thousands of milennia to the days when the masters of the staff raised whole armies of the restless dead for the amusement of their unspeakably vile masters. This is the weapon of a monster, in the hands of a madwoman; a mad monkey with the keys to a city bomb.

---

"Yes, that would work very well with our plans," said the cult's overlord, shaking Belphegor's clawed hand almost daintily. Before he could move on, though, there came a startled squawk from the van as one of the cultists went flying overhead to smash against the far wall with a crunch. Groaning, the man fell to the alley as a black-clad figure leapt to the top of the nearby van. "No escape!" Avenger roared, his voice terrifying enough to strike fear into all but the hardiest of souls.

[N/A]

The Scarab held one hand up to her forehead, and the other open and outstretched toward Sister Sixtus. "You fancy yourself a master of the infernal arts? You no nothing of Hell. But you will learn." A blood-red aura erupted around The Scarab's head and hands. A swarm of translucent red-winged gold-bellied scarab beetles sprang up out of thin air around Sister Sixtus. The scarabs swarmed up over her body, many of them sinking down inside her flesh, biting her in every conceivable place from every imaginable angle. Let's see how you like every pain receptor in your entire body firing off all at once.

[Cyroa]

Dark Star blinked as the crazed woman took his shot head on, literally, and then simply shrugged it off. And got crazier too. Her 'creepy-vibe' was definitely growing but he had seen enough over the years that he was unmoved. Of course he had no idea on what to do about all this mystical stuff. Hopefully Scarab knew more about how to deal with this...

"Let's try that one more time..." he growled and unleased another graviton beam right at the raving woman. Hopefully it would have some effect or at least distract her for Scarab's plan, whatever-it-was, to work.

[Dr Archeville]

Hunh, my first costumed-do gooder. Hope this goes better than my last fight.

The demon -- for surely that's what the massive red-scaled, bat-inged, clawed, horned thins with the cultists was -- turned and faced Avenger, and his fists burst into flames. The flames do not look right, they look much darker than they should. "Fool! You dare block our way, dare to obstruct our great work? You shall fall just as all others who oppose us, ground into the mud and blood beneath our conquering march!"

The demon spread his arms out a bit, and the hellfire around his fists flowed out into a ball of hellfire before him, growing quite big (in stuttering pulses, not a smooth expansion) quite quickly. He then slammed his fists together behind the sphere, and it raced out towards the dark-clad Avenger, hitting him square in the chest!

[Avenger Assembled]

Avenger proceeded to burst into flames with a surprising alacrity, the sheer force of Belphegor's infernal blast hurling him off the back of the van and through the boarded-over stained glass window with an explosion of shattered glass and broken wood. The cultists gave a whoop of delight in reply, the cult leader clapping Belphegor manfully on the back. "Come, off to North Bay!" Leaving behind their fallen members, the cultists ran pell-mell for the van.

Though Jack had hoped for a triumphant entry into the desecrated church upon defeating the cultists, instead he had to settle for flying through the window on fire, smashing into the far wall with a sickening crunch right at Sister Sixtus' feet. To say the least, it looked very, very bad indeed for the dark avenger of the night.

The actions of the still-struggling heroes wiped the smirk off Sister Sixtus' face, for all that it got a little bigger when the flaming Avenger came crashing into the building. She staggered under the onslaught of Scarab's psychic beetles, and as Dark Star blasted her. But the two heroes could see that the damage was illusory; they were knocking her off her completely mortal feet, but not actually injuring her. "Stop it! I hate bugs!" She screamed and drove the staff into the ground, cracking the stone an inch from Avenger's head as waves of black arcane energy came boiling out of the staff. The energy was a cold, damnable thing; the most terrible vacumn of the void, the most monstrous of the energies of the Underworld, doing nothing to the walls around them but reaching hungrily for the souls of two of the heroes!

For his part, Jack was a bit more concerned with the fact that he was on fire. He stopped dropped and rolled, something which turned out to work well enough for fires supernatural and regular alike, for all that his nice new cape was so much ash. Cursing violently, he tore off his ruined hockey mask, exposing the now-singed ski mask he wore underneath. He hurt; he'd taken glass shards in places he didn't want to think about, and parts of him were charred. But he was still in the fight, and he wasn't going down that easily. He staggered to his feet and tackled Sister Sixtus! He was no more able to injure her than anyone else, but he did manage to wrap his arms around her midsection as he struggled unsuccessfully for the staff, pinning her in place for a few critical moments.

[Avenger Assembled]

The waves of unimaginable necromantic energy tore their way through Scarab's psychic defenses and reached even to Dark Star's energetic body, pulling and tearing not at their bodies but at the stuff of their very souls. Despite the searing psychic pain ripping through her very essence, though, Scarab was able to observe something bizarre. As Avenger struggled to his feet and ripped off his mask, a black wave of energy clearly passed straight through his body and out the other side. It wasn't that he shrugged off the magical energy or avoided it; he didn't seem to notice the energies at all.

Singed and in pain, Avenger certainly noticed the infuriated, very angry cultist he was grappling with. His efforts to wrest the staff from her failed as surely as his efforts to hurt her did, and the energies boiling in the air around him felt very, very bad indeed. "Scarab! Dark Star" Avenger shouted over the noise of Sixtus' screaming and threats. "The roof! Bring down the roof!"

[Cyroa]

Dark Star reeled from the strange attack. He had no experience with this mystical stuff and from this brief exposure, he wasn't exactly happy with it. He was having trouble focusing on anything from that last attack...

He heard Avenger's voice and could only trust Avenger had a plan. "On it!" he yelled. "Scarab get him outta there!" If Avenger was just a man, albeit with some special training, the falling roof would kill him or at the least hurt him badly. Dark Star reached up towards the ceiling and brought the full force of his gravity down across the entire roof. He only hoped Scarab had a way of protecting both Avenger and herself from the soon-to-be mass of falling debris.

[Dr Archeville]

Avenger proceeded to burst into flames with a surprising alacrity, the sheer force of Belphegor's infernal blast hurling him off the back of the van and through the boarded-over stained glass window with an explosion of shattered glass and broken wood. The cultists gave a whoop of delight in reply, the cult leader clapping Belphegor manfully on the back. "Come, off to North Bay!" Leaving behind their fallen members, the cultists ran pell-mell for the van.

Belphegor leaps into the air and hovers (mostly) in place, watching to make sure the cultists get in and get going. Gotta follow them to see where they're going, but should I try to make it look like I'm not following them, that I know where they're going? OR should I play up the 'obedient hellhound' routine?

Deciding to err on the side of subservience, "Bael" points towards the North Bay. "Lead on, I shall fly above to insure we are not followed!"

[N/A]

The Scarab's eyes widened as she saw Avenger's complete indifference to the life-rending attack. What the hell are you...? She didn't have time to think about it in the current chaos, but she wasn't likely to forget about it, either.

She flew up behind Avenger, so quickly she hissed through the air, wrapped her arms tightly around his chest, closed her eyes, and concentrated. A scarlet energy wave erupted out from her body, coalescing into a translucent glowing bubble surrounding the two of them. She strained every muscle in her body as she focused the totality of her attention on making that bubble as strong and as tough as she could.

[Avenger Assembled]

Dark Star's blast shattered the roof of the old church, sending huge chunks of stone and wooden beams crumbling down on the heroes inside. Pulled free from Avenger's embrace, Sister Sixtus looked up as as a huge beam came tumbling down from below and plowed into her midsection. She just had time to scream, the sheer force of impact driving a massive black bolt of necromantic energy from the staff straight up into the air. There was no question of restraint now; the whole roof caved in on the three heroes. Sister Sixtus disappeared as the floor gave way beneath her, woman and staff disappearing into the cavernous depths of the church basement as huge chunks of the defaced ceiling followed her town Scarab's quick, creative use of her psychic powers protected both herself and Avenger, the big beams and blocks bouncing off her shield even as the stone floor chipped and powdered beneath them. (Dark Star, naturally, was immune from worries about material objects passing right through him.)

With a resounding crash, the last ceiling block fell to the ground, leaving the heroes in a huge cloud of dust and debris, the floor unstable beneath their feet from the fallen timbers. Avenger blinked a few times, Jack surprised and pleased to be saved. "Thank you, Scarab," He blinked against the dust, a tiny bit shell-shocked by the volume of devastation they'd all unleashed. "Good shot."

[Cyroa]

Dark Star looked around the destruction. He actually felt bad for wrecking the place but there hadn't exactly been a plethora of options. He glanced down at the rubble and then back at Avenger and Scarab. "What the 9 rings of Raxos was that?" He looked down again. "Wait one. Going to make sure she didn't escape...and maybe make sure the staff is busted or retrieve it. We don't want that to get loose into the world again, whatever it was."

He sank through the floor, using his senses to search through the wreckage for the woman and the diabolical staff...

[N/A]

The Scarab opened her eyes when Avenger thanked her. Then she realized she was still holding onto him, and quickly untangled herself and stepped back. She cleared her throat. *ahem* No problem. That's...what we're here for." As DarkStar faded down into the rubble, The Scarab sprang into action. "I'll help." She looked down at the collapsed masonry, then looked off to the side. A pile of wood and stone lifted up in to the air, floated several feet away, then fell down in a heap. She repeated over and over again. Heh. Digging for buried treasure...Wait, did I just crack a joke? We may have just killed someone. Someone who was nothing more than a pawn in someone else's mad game. Her shoulders sagged a bit as she looked down for a moment, shaking her head slightly before resuming her work.

[Avenger Assembled]

Though the search below revealed an impressive array of arcane artifacts, some large and some small, there was no sign of either Sister Sixtus or her malevolent arcane staff. The two telekinetics did manage to find the beam that had struck her, though, its distinctive crucifix shape now battered and partially smashed by the weight of further debris landing on it. The beam has been altered by more than just impact, though; the end that struck Sister Sixtus has been cut away by a force sharp enough to leave the stone shining mirror-bright. Some smaller chunks of rock and stone are cut sharp as well, some in half and others in thirds, making for an ominous suggestion indeed.

After all the fuss over the thefts from the Beaumont collection, the missing daka crystal proved easy enough for Scarab and Dark Star to find, though there were no signs of the bolt that killed Varney Orloff nor the dagger whose bizarre shadow powers made Nacht-Krieger. Avenger helped briefly with the search, but soon the battered adventurer limped out of the half-ruined church to deal with the people he'd been beating up before the fight all went to Hell. "Prisoners outside. Must speak to them before the police arrive."

[Cyroa]

Dark Star was...relieved? Sort of. He was glad that he hadn't killed her...and it would have been on his head. Of course, the fact that she had escaped with the staff meant she was still a threat. It was with mixed emotions that he rose to the surface. As he did, he put all the little odd things they found in a pile off to one side for someone to examine and hopefully return to their rightful owners. "Darn. She got away..." He shrugged and brought himself back to situation at hand.

He looked over at Avenger's limping form and Scarab's bruised one. He cleared his throat. "Excuse me, but before you head out there. I think can help with your injuries. A little positive radiation and I should be able to repair all sorts of cellular damage. I've done it numerous times in the past." He could have just healed them by moving next to them but that just seemed a little...well, a little rude really.

He waited for permission before gliding over and extending his hand, letting the gentle waves of energy wash over them and repairing the damage they had suffered.

[N/A]

"They still have the dagger. Dammit." The Scarab slammed her fist against a broken wall to punctuate her expletive, and absent-mindedly sent a pile of fallen masonry flying with a telekinetic burst. "Sorry. They have the dagger that Wilhelm Kantor used to turn Johann Meinhoff into Der Nacht-Krieger. Whether the knife had power before the ritual or absorbed the resonance of Der Schattenwelt after is academic. Either way, that relic is ridiculously dangerous in the wrong hands. Whatever rite they're planning, I'd bet my next life that dagger is at the center of it."

"Darn. She got away..." He shrugged and brought himself back to situation at hand.

"It happens. They can run, but they can't hide. Especially not from me."

He looked over at Avenger's limping form and Scarab's bruised one. He cleared his throat. "Excuse me, but before you head out there. I think can help with your injuries. A little positive radiation and I should be able to repair all sorts of cellular damage. I've done it numerous times in the past."

"I would greatly appreciate that. It feels like I just got stabbed, but in my soul." She turned to Avenger, then quickly back to DarkStar. "Don't bother with Avenger, though. He heals with alarming alacrity. And he missed the worst of it."

While DarkStar focused on healing her, The Scarab glanced back over at Avenger and made brief mental contact.

We'll talk later.

"Prisoners outside. Must speak to them before the police arrive."

"Agreed. You do the talking. I'll do the 'listening.' The old 'Bad Cop / Thought Police' routine."

[Avenger Assembled]

A lesser man might have hesitated at Dark Star's offer and Scarab's quick reply, but Jack had the advantage of being from a race of unnatural schemers and plotters. If Scarab suspects, give him no reason to doubt you. "Prefer to rely on my own abilities. No offense." Still limping, Avenger made his way outside to where several cultists were stretched out on the asphalt driveway by some tire tracks. "Had a demon. Good shot. Getting tired of demons." Firmly in-character, Avenger picked up a moaning cultist one-handed, slamming him into the wall. With his other hand, he punched him in the stomach. "Where?"

"What? Oh, God..." The man vomited. "I dunno!"

"WHERE?" Avenger hit him again, cold rage in his blue eyes. If the whole game had been blown because of these sons of...

"We gotta a lotta safehouses, man! I dunno! What did you do?" The already-battered cultist was bleeding badly from the face, where it looked like Avenger, or someone, had smashed him teeth-first into the asphalt earlier in the fight.

"WHERE DID THEY GO?"

"They'll kill you if you go there, man," replied the cultist, shattered but still defiant. "The sacrifice will bring forth the Red King! All will be immortal before-" His voice broke off in a squeak as Avenger lifted him into the air, the genuine disgust in Jack's voice breaking through the persona of Avenger for a moment.

"Talk now, or I swear to God they'll find your guts on the roof of this place!" He met the cultist's eyes, and by God the man saw he meant it.

"North Bay! They're in the place in North Bay! They'll kill you if you go there! Maybe Sixtus lost the Staff, but we've got powerful friends! The King will Rise!"

[Cyroa]

After healing himself and Scarab, Dark Star nodded. "Very well. It is your choice of course." He wouldn't force healing on the man. And, if the Scarab was correct (which seemed likely since they had obviously worked together in the past), then Avenger was a fast healer. It also meant the man was a little more than insanely well trained. Dark Star gave a mental shrug and followed them outside.

To a scene he was not expecting to see. He blinked, surprised and shocked at the violent and brutal interrogation. While it was obviously effective, it was also too much for him. Those kinds of thing were done by the bad guys. Not the heroes. He was a bit nieve and trusting, true. But he had a very defined sense of right and wrong. This was wrong. He was a little confused as well as shocked. Avenger was a hero. And heroes did not resort to brutality.

"Whoa! That's enough I think. There's no reason for that. Scarab could find the truth out without resorting to such brutality and half-killing the man. We're better than that. Do not sink to their level, Avenger. We're here to save people, not hurt them." The fact that he was playing the perfect 'good cop' didn't occur to him until after he had spoken.

[N/A]

"It's not just about getting the information, DarkStar. It's also about teaching them a lesson. They're toying with powers beyond their understanding. Powers that will consume their souls as a tasty snack, and use their skins to wipe their mouths clean afterward. If we don't make an impression, they'll just fall right back into their old habits once we're gone."

Reading minds isn't an exact science. Sometimes I miss things. It's like looking for coins on a beach - sometimes the tides recede, sometimes they sweep in full-force. Avenger's just covering our bases.

"But as long as you are concerned, I'd appreciate it if you'd use those healing powers to put this poor boy back together again."

[Avenger Assembled]

The cultist turned out to be telling the truth as Scarab probed his mind, though his memories were addled by drugs and magic. (Not to mention magical drugs.) His cult's rituals were hedonistic, bloody things with large doses of self-mutilation and flagellation, with the idea that their sacrifices and sins brought them close to the Red King who would very soon rise to overthrow the world of men. Avenger dropped the man contemptuously to the ground, wiping blood from his hands. "Scum.," the dark crusader pronounced, visibly offended. "Suggest we recruit assistance. Had difficulty with this fight. Need to recuperate. "

[N/A]

"He's telling the truth. It's your basic sadomasochistic apocalypse cult. They want to wipe the slate clean and start over, though they have no real understanding of just what that would entail. Short-sighted fools who have never been on a firing range, but found the key to their parents' gun cabinet."

The license plate of the demolished SUV rose up out of the rubble and flew toward The Scarab. She caught it in her hand without looking at it. "I'll take care of this."

She waved her hand absent-mindedly at the cultist, telekinetically lifting him in the air. As he hung suspended upside-down in front of her, she leaned in to his face. "What do you mean, she 'lost' the Staff? Elaborate."

[Cyroa]

Dark Star nodded slighty towards the more experience hero as he moved forward and, once the man was secured (either through one of the others or Dark Star telekinetically tieing him up), extended his radiation outwards and healing the man. "If you say so..." Maybe she was right. Maybe the guy was just misguided and this would set him back on the right path. Maybe. These two certainly were more experienced than he at this sort of thing. But it didn't make Dark Star comfortable with the situation. He couldn't help it but it still felt ... excessive. He gave a mental shrug and returned to the topic at hand.