ic Double Date of Doom (IC)

[Gizmo]

"Won't stay secret, regardless," Trevor noted in his toneless, impartial manner, stating fact without attempting to sway the couple one way or the other as he turned the bulk of his attention toward scanning the space for any additional threats. "Serpent People found out. Typhoon will as well." The ruler's methods of intelligence gathering were well funded and he'd have ample motivation to look into the history and dirty secrets of his son's mysterious new bride. "Assassination attempt; motivated by taboo?" he asked al-Arima, seeking clarification. If anything it seemed advantageous to the Serpents to breed into such a powerful family but their reaction was clearly following a different philosophy.

[Avenger Assembled]

"And more," said Nepthys scornfully, looking down at the unconscious figure of Ahmed, the bound and battered Serpent Person who had started all the trouble. It was still hard to believe, looking at the lovely would-be princess, that she was the same reptilian species as the fallen criminal. "I am from a powerful line, and promised to my egg-brother so that we might foster a new generation of hatchlings. When he learned I preferred another, and from...outside our kind as well, it drove him to madness. Those he poisoned will be fine in a few hours," she added concernedly to the others, "you need not burn the serpent's venom from their bodies. It is a common trick used on prisoners from the surface; they are still your people."

"I can't speak for Socotra," said Mark seriously, "or what Typhoon will do, but here in Freedom City, everyone's people. They're probably right about not going home just yet. And if you guys need a place to crash that doesn't have all that surveillance up and around, you're welcome to my apartment, or one of our many nice hotels..." He shot a glance at Nina, who was still looking pretty uncomfortable about all this, and made a little gesture with his hand. C'mon...

"No, no, Mark's apartment is very nice but it's not secure enough, and you have no reason to stay in one of this city's cheap hotels." Nina actually smiled, and reached over to put her hand on Mark's. "Why don't you stay at my apartment?" Nina had had to bend a few rules to have an off-campus apartment, but with enough money to pay for dorms _and_ apartment, the al-Darsahs had had a lot of resources. "And then I can stay at Mark's place for a while, and we can talk. Won't that be fun?" She gave him a hard smile, and Mark smiled back.

"In any event," Mark suggested to the others, "the best thing we can do is go deal with the crowd outside, and help make sure the poisoning victims are getting treated. That'll give you guys time to figure out what you're going to say to the family-" Edge had walked over to the double-doors near Morakot and Nepthys and pulled them open, planning to trust Trevor and Erin to deal with the Serpent prisoner.

Standing in the doorway instead, he found Daisy Gibbons and a pale-face Socotran security guard. The Claremont dropout's face was buried in the man's neck, and as she raised her face, she hissed and bared her bloody fangs automatically, hissing as the semi-conscious man she'd backed against the wall collapsed. When she saw who it was, though, the former student turned vampire gasped in surprise. "Ah, damnit! He said he locked that!"

[Gizmo]

Trevor hoisted the unconscious Serpent's form up before dumping it in a sitting position on a nearby chair where he would be easier to keep an eye on. Ideally he would have linked to have bound the would-be assassin more securely, but he wasn't prepared to explain why a socialite might have a pocketful of industrial strength zip ties at a gala event. Thankfully, given the jolt he'd received, it was unlikely the villain would awake any time soon.

Mark's surprised reaction turned his attention to where his friend had opened the nearby doors. Stepping over to get a better look, he placed one hand wearily across his face. "Dammit, Gibbons."

[Electra]

Erin was a step behind Trevor, and the look on her face was almost comically shocked for a moment. Were they ever going to stop having weird trouble out of Daisy Gibbons at fancy parties? She blanked her face, then put on a look not far from the ones she used to give JJ when he would get hungry and chew on her arm. "Step away from him, Daisy," she ordered, reaching for her handbag just in case. "And take a few big steps back from all of us. We don't want to see anybody else get hurt tonight." She left the "not even you" part of the statement implied. At least the guard still seemed to be breathing, even if it didn't seem like he could stand on his own anymore.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hey, you guys, it's okay," said Daisy soothingly, stepping away from the semi-conscious man as she tried to lick the blood off her impressive fangs. Up close, those were clearly vampire teeth, not the longer, curved serpent venom-deliverers seen in the others. The Socotran slipped to the floor, a dopey smile on his face. "He's fine, and I'm fine, and we're all okay, right? I asked him if he wanted to party and he said yes, and you'd better believe he had a good time." She winked at Mark, then at the others, the Socotran royal family looking on goggle-eyed, all charm and good cheer having recovered from her momentary lapse. "Look, I'll just be going, and you guys can get back to your snake monster thing. Serpent People, who knew?"

"Stop that." said Edge accusingly, giving Daisy a firm glare that made her sigh. He thought of the Daisy Gibbons of Anti-Earth, safely through therapy and resettled far away from Freedom City. This wasn't that Daisy, though; he recognized the conscious attempts to influence everyone by sheer force of superpowered presence. "That has never worked on me and you know it, not even when you were human."

At his words, she seemed to deflate a little, that so-persuasive mien fading slightly. "Look, fine, I know I can't take all of you at once. I couldn't before, and even...upgraded," she added, "I probably can't now. So what's it gonna be? Are we all walking out of here?"

[Electra]

"You're going to stand right there, Daisy," Erin countered, reaching into her bag. Instead of her bat, though, she drew out her phone. "I'm going to call someone to come and pick you up, and you're going to wait here until they show up." She punched in a number she knew from memory, thanks to more than a year of regular babysitting gigs. "Hey, this is Erin," she began, then paused, a look of faint consternation on her face. "Yes, okay... hi JJ," she said, stifling a sigh. "Yeah, long time no see, huh? Oh, yeah, I like cars too. Listen, can you give the phone back to your daddy now? Thank you!"

Reverting back to professional, she kept an eye on Daisy as she spoke. "The reason I'm calling is I've got a kind of a problem here with someone you might know. Maybe like in a professional capacity," she added vaguely. "Daisy Gibbons? She's causing some trouble at the Socotran embassy, and I'm not sure quite what to do with her."

[Avenger Assembled]

"...yes, I know Daisy," said Avenger after a moment, sounding edgier than he usually was when the subject of Erin's classmates came up. She could still hear Jack Jr. in the background, roaring and scampering around, maybe on the ceiling this time. The little guy had always liked dinosaurs too. "I was worried she'd cause problems on her own. What has she been telling you?" She heard Phantom saying something, and Avenger's reply, "It's nothing, dear, it's just Erin calling about a work problem. I'm helping her."

"Look, uh, if she's causing problems, I can be there to deal with it, but it'll take me a minute. She's not allowed in this house while Taylor is around. Or when she's not!" he added. "But especially not when Taylor's around."

-

"How did this happen to you?" Mark was asking Daisy, giving the vampire version of his former enemy a searching look. Daisy looked human enough now, albeit pale and beautiful, but luckily had force of personality enough to resist _that_ particular pretty face. "Who did this to you?"

"Oh, well, I did it to myself, or close to it," said Daisy with the ghost of a wink. "Back in New York, I met this really rich, really hot guy who said he could set me up for life." She rubbed the side of her pale neck and added reflectively, "Anyway, _that_ certainly wasn't what I wanted out of a relationship, so we had a fight and I came back here."

"Mark, I don't understand," said Nina, giving her boyfriend an elbow to the ribs. "Why aren't we killing this leech? And how do you all know her so well?"

"Because vampires are people too!" said Mark automatically, coming to the defense of the underdog even when there wasn't much of the underdog about the still very gorgeous Daisy Gibbons, "and because Daisy...we went to high school together."

"You went to high school with a VAMPIRE?" Nina exclaimed, hands on her lovely hips as she stared at Mark in shock.

"She wasn't a vampire then!"

[Gizmo]

"'Leech' was always fairly accurate," Trevor muttered under his breath, resisting the urge rub the bridge of his nose vigorously. Besides what she'd become and the emotional pain she'd inflicted on her fellow students, Gibbons was responsible for some extremely graphic images that were going to be burned into the young detective's naturally retentive memory for the rest of his days. Instead he gave the royal couple a faint shrug, saying, "See what we mean about fitting in here." A half-serpent, hydrokinetic infant prince-in-exile was hardly going to warrant a raised eyebrow by Freedom City standards.

Walking back to the unconscious assassin, Trevor grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the front of the hall and outside where the authorities were arriving and beginning to take statements. "Tried to murder the bride," he informed the ranking officer as he handed over the attacker with the first of the reporters on the scene listening in, "but Prince Morakot subdued him. Bravest thing I ever saw." It said something else about Freedom City standards that the story was accepted without question.

[Electra]

"You can come yourself, or you can send someone else, but I don't like letting her run around unsupervised," Erin replied, frowning into the phone. "She's already just about caused an international incident, and it's not even ten pm. We'll keep her here till you guys can come and collect her at the Socotran Embassy." Erin dearly wanted to know exactly what had happened between Daisy and Phantom, Avenger's tiny but intimidating wife, but now was not the time to ask. She put away the phone and gave Daisy a level look. "Someone is coming to fetch you," she told the beautiful pain-in-the-ass starlet. "You're gonna want to be here when they arrive."

[Avenger Assembled]

Though it wasn't every day that Midnight, Wander, and Edge dealt with serpentine intermarriage into a powerful metahuman royal family and the revelation that one of their former, er, acquaintances had been transformed into a vampire, by now turning criminals over to the police and dealing with rogue elements from their own age group was something perilously like routine for them. Avenger and Phantom came to take Daisy Gibbons away, a smiling JJ waving to Erin from his mom's arms as Avenger took Daisy aside for some hard words about responsibility and respectability. Nina went with her brother and Nepthys to help do damage control at the embassy itself, kissing Mark on the cheek and promising to call him later.

"Well, not the best time I've ever shown you guys," muttered Mark to Erin, "but at least it was a memorable night...do you think Trevor needs a hand out there?"

Outside, the Serpent Man had been taken away by STAR Squad, and the injured people were being treated: it wasn't that hard to see a pale Meaghan being treated by EMTs with oxygen, an officer's jacket over her torn dress and her family on the scene.

[Electra]

"I'll go check on him," Erin murmured back. "You keep an eye on the royals for as long as you can, make sure we didn't miss anything or anybody out to get them." Running her fingers once more over her tousled hair, she walked outside and blended into the crowd of confused partygoers just beginning to disperse. Erin made a note of Meaghan on the ground, largely unharmed despite the quick pummeling she'd taken, but her focus was on finding Trevor. Spotting him through the crowd, she deftly wove her way through the milling people to come up next to him.

"Daisy's gone," she told him quietly, "and the family is away. I think we're just doing mop-up for now. Nice move with that assassin, by the way," she added with a quick smile. Laying a hand on his arm, Erin took a good look at Trevor's face. "You okay?"

[Gizmo]

Trevor's lips parted the speak but he was silent for a beat as he looked over as an EMT with a surprisingly square and dimpled chin attempted to shoo away the young, muscular officer who's jacket Meaghan was wearing as he attempted to take a statement from the recovering socialite. The Hunter heir let of a quiet breath and adjusted his beaten fedora with one hand while he placed the other over Erin's on his arm. "Yeah. I'm okay." Turning away, he led the way at a sauntering pace. The corner of his mouth turned up slightly as he added, "Heh. You really clocked her one."

[Electra]

"Yeah, that was awesome," Erin agreed with a cheerful lack of modesty as they walked back into the building. "And don't think I'm not going to keep that image right at the front of my mind next time we run into her at one of these things." She looked around as they went in, but aside from the terrible mess, the place was pretty empty. "So what do you think the odds are that Typhoon hears about all this tonight?" she asked, tilting her head and looking at the disaster. "Cause if we're going to have to face him down too, I'm getting the hell out of this dress first."