Order And Chaos: A Superpower RP (Started, Closed)

[PrinceOfShapeir]

A shimmering fiend stood in front of her, both man and spectral evil, hideous and beautiful at once, and he whispered a sweet, seductive evil to her. "Let go of the staff."

The very thought was repugnant. Give up the staff? That would be like giving up her very life.

You're already dead.

The thought jostled her out of her reverie, but what she saw was still not entirely real. Mark shimmered with energy, a hateful light that threatened to sear her with its beauty, and Justin was a man of icy smoke, barely visible in this realm. Above she could see skies shot through with tears into worlds beyond, pale wisps pouring into them and out of them. One tear linked to her and the book at her side, and she gazed into it. The realm beyond the tear was a roiling darkness and the dark stank of decay, and in the dark she could see a movement, something gazing down upon her and seeing her return the gaze.

That baleful stare brought her focus back, and the world cleared up a bit. "No...it won't let me. So much power, I can almost grasp it...my hand! Cut my hand off!"

 

[Pm0n3y]

Justin jumped further down the alley, nearing the trio right when he heard Veil go "...my hand! Cut my hand off!" He quickly knelt to her side, deactivating the electrically charged gauntlet. "Whoa Vicky, that sounds a little drastic." He could've easily mulled over just how he could've reacted to touching the staff, or just how she herself could've resisted once he put his hands on it. Instead, impulsively, reactively, and prehaps protectively, he grabbed for the staff himself. With the Awe placed firmly on the shaft, Justin slowly placed the insulator glove over her hand. "I'm gonna pry your fingers off, okay? Please don't like, choke me in a possessive rage or something." He began for the pointer finger, and in that moment, remembered her super strength. "D-damn Vick, grip it any harder and you'd break it in half!" He stifled a nervous chuckle as he pulled.

 

[booksv2]

After a few minutes of no answer from his phone Marcus turns to it and picks it up.
"When you have decided one way or another get back to me. We will get together to make a plan then."

Turning his phone off and pocketing it Marcus turns on one of the TV's in the hideout and turns on the news. Looking at it as it reports lighting strikes and what looks like fast growing storm clouds that showed up and grew in a matter of minutes. Rubbing his face with his oily hand he remembers the lighting he had seen before and decided against going to see, but now there may be a reason as some reports of hero's fight down some gang-banger.

Leaving the news on and grabbing his helmet on his way past the table back to his motorcycle he slides it over his head and locks it place as he swings a leg over the bike. Kicking up the kickstand and revving the engine he quarter turns it and speeds down a tunnel with a sign over it saying street exit. Speeding down the dimly lit tunnel Marcus regrets not being able to smoke inside the helmet as he speeds out the entrance of the tunnel out what looks like a buildings driveway and turns down the street looking for lightning still striking. After half a minute of nothing he turns down another main street towards where those reports had the hero's fighting.

Getting to the street only a few minutes later he slows down and looks in every alley he passes to check if they are there. The helmet in inferred as he does he sees a few people sleeping in boxes before he gets to an alley with several body's and what looks like someone with no body heat. Slowing more and stopping across the street and turning the inferred off and checks over the people inside the alley as he sits straddling his motorcycle. Watching one on the ground seeming to be holding something while another kneels over her fiddling with something. But the ones who interest him are the others in the alley who were watching. as well as the still burning wreck of a car sitting just down the alley from them with what looked like a gang member who had taken quite a beating with his face bloody and his clothes burned.

Sitting there still as he looks them over Marcus's eyes keep going back to the gang member and the other person on the ground. Rubbing his hand on his pants as he watch's he narrows his eyes slightly.
"looks like the witch doctor gave someone else some trinket and they got crazy with power. Fuck, if he talks about who gave it to him or where he got it a significant part of what is planned could be down the drain."

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Maybe the strain was causing her to crack or maybe the staff was just starting to get frustrated, but things started getting weird as Justin tried to coax her to open her hand.

Snatches of half-remembered conversations began to run through her mind.

"Just drop it, Victoria! It's over!"

"Hold on, V. Stay on the line."

"I could just kill him, make things simpler."

She was losing her connection to reality, the vision taking on an almost cartoonish feel. In the back of her mind a part of Victoria wondered whether we were going Roger Rabbit or Space Jam.

Apparently the staff took that as a suggestion. Dream-Manhattan shuddered and shook under the footsteps of a thirty foot tall Mao, dribbling against what appeared to be Dennis Rodman in a bunny suit.

A hand brushed against hers. Nothing. Then took her fingers. She looked again, then opened her eyes. Justin. Trying to take the staff. Just focus. A heartbeat of focus and her grip weakened, enough that he could pull it open and take the staff.

As soon as it was free of her hand she slumped, her head aching as the real world reasserted itself. "What...the fuck...was that!?"

 

[CounterAttack]

"Let me see that weapon," Talsper requested in answer of Veil's question. Unable to take it himself to physically examine it, he contented himself with joining Justin and Veil, bending down a little to closely scrutinise the staff. "Hmm... it is of Eniadan make, that much is certain. Meaning it came from the radical magister Intet Yxi. If it would not let you go, Lady Velour..."

Mark heard screeching of tires in the distance. A black van had just come to a halt, effectively sealing off the alley from its side. "Talsper, do you know what it does or not? We may have company."

"Patience, goodsir. One must first eliminate the impossibilities before determining the reality." Talsper continued to study the staff in Justin's gloved hand. "It absorbeth materials from its surroundings, lightning doth strike on days of blue, and it hath some effect of control on its bearer... thou canst not touch this weapon with bare skin, lest thou wish to succumb to its lure. An intelligence enchantment is at play here."

"So this staff is thinking on its own?"

"Precisely."

Mark cursed under his breath. If Intet was giving away artifacts that thought for themselves, only he knew what else he had in store. Meanwhile, the van's door had slid open and a team of six - four men, two women - had emerged. Each carried a gun of some kind, mostly pistols, and wore body armour with the letters

[b]FBI[/b]

emblazoned on the chest. The six agents approached the Seraphim operatives in the alley, one of them carrying a plain ID wallet.

"Gentlemen, lady... whatever you are," he began, referring to Talsper's spirit last. The agent opened the wallet briefly, then closed it and returned it to a pocket. "Janus Corte, FBI; these are agents Villeneuve, Tirel, Cauda, Shepherd and Simmons. Would one or more of you mind explaining what's happened here?"

"Seraphim business, Agent Corte," Mark quickly answered before Justin opened his mouth and promptly put his foot in it; the traceur offered his own Seraphim-issued ID as he spoke. "We've just dealt with the situation at hand; this guy had some items that need to be contained before they cause more damage in the wrong hands."

Talsper thought-spoke into Mark's mind. Evidently he understood the value of privacy. Speaking of which... take the amulet from the man's neck. I wish to examine that further.

"'Scuse me." Mark knelt beside the unconscious street thug, fumbling with the pendant's fine chain before lifting it from the unconscious body and making sure he kept it to his gloved hand. To be on the safe side.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"On that note," Victoria said, holding up a finger for the FBI agents to hush, concealing a perverse glee as she dug out her cell and made a call. "Veil here. Target down, we need a Pandora unit here, tell them it's a high grade threat with significant psycho-memetic effect."

There was a long pause on the other end. "Repeat that, Veil." The normally unflappable dispatcher sounded utterly dumbfounded.

"Oh come on...we've got an evil staff that makes you magic and drives you crazy if you touch it."

"...right, we'll dispatch a containment unit."

She hung up and gave the feds a big smile. "We've got this, agents. Situation is under control."

One of the agents, an older man, put his head against the side of the van with a sigh. The others seemed equally irritated and frustrated. "Corte, can we go before the news crews show up and make us look like idiots again?"

 

[booksv2]

Lifting his face mask just enough to slip a cigarette under it and light it with a lighter hidden in the handle of the motorcycle Marcus takes in the black can that had pulled in front of the alley just minutes ago. Staring at the driver and tilting his head slightly as he spies a little wire going from his jacket to his ear he curses under his breath as he takes a giant draw of the cigarette and slams the lighter back into the bike and revs the engine slightly as he stares at the van with harder eyes. Pulling his cigarette out and flicking it into the middle of the street before burning his tires and facing the van he jumps his bike out into the street and keeps it down as he pulls back towards the back of it and turns it more to pull up next to the drivers side door and rapping his knuckles on the window, making a motion for him to roll it down.

The driver shakes his head and waves Marcus off but he raps his knuckles on the window again. The driver sighs and leans over to pull out his wallet before rolls the window half way down before flashing his badge over the edge of the window and barking out of it.
"Get lost! This is a federal van and you need to move on!"

Under the blacked out helmet Marcus's eyebrows raise and he guns the bike making a small tongue of flames spit out the tailpipe. Grabbing ahould of it with his powers and pulling it up he makes it burn hotter and it flies into the drivers mouth and burns everything in and around his mouth past the point of ever being used again. Reaching up and snagging the wallet Marcus closes it and slips it into his jacket as he keeps the 3 inch flames hot as a welding torch in his mouth his brain fries in under a second and his head starts to blacken as Marcus pops the brake and starts flying down the road. Following the road a dozen lights down doing the speed limit he takes a hard right down another street and keeps going slow as he activates his bluetooth and leaves a message on a machine specially made for messages that need to be passed around now.

"Virus, spread it around. Someone with magic tech just got either offed or picked up on the street and the federals are trying to pick them off the saints hands. Most i see happening is your witch doctor did something and now they have at least a stick that throws lightning and maybe more."

Closing the connection and gunning the motorcycle to swerve around some cars.

 

[Pm0n3y]

"We've got this, agents. Situation is under control." Victoria responded. Justin hopped up, staff in gloved hand. "Yeah! You guys aren't needed here." He added as smugly as he could possibly muster, causally waving the staff around in a fashion that made the FBI operatives jump. Out of the grasp of the others, the staff seemed inert. No elemental orbs orbited the stick and it didn't make the boy hallucinate burning the city to the ground.

"So i'm guessing i'd have to take my gloves off completely to use this?" Then he twisted a bit towards his partners. "Also, do we really need to bring a Pandora team out here? I mean, the tower's like, a few blocks away. We could just walk." He commented under his breath, the sound of a motorcycle engine brought his attention back out of the alley. The FBI van's windows may have been extremely tinted, but Justin could still notice the smoke billowing from an unseen window. "Also, FBI mooks, your car's on fire." The thunder exploded through once more, and the clouds darkened further. What little drizzle that was apparent became a full on steady downpour. "On second thought, maybe the team might be a good idea. Or at least they could get us out of this rain."

[hr]

Soarele quickly regained his footing, just in time to collide with a coffee table that was flung towards him. The barrage didn't end there, as the sea monster (now in a much smaller form) tossed whatever she could at him. He deflected most of the items, with a swipe of his claw and the twirl of his fiery Whiteraze, the dragon waited for a lull in the rapid fire before blowing a puff of his murky smoke in her direction. With the shroud obscuring her vision, the dragon passed through the stuff, his halberd still lit. As the tackled her, the force of the explosion rocketed the two out of the building, and sent them spiraling further into Manhattan.

 

[CounterAttack]

"Corte, can we go before the news crews show up and make us look like idiots again?"

"Also, FBI mooks, your car's on fire."

"What the-? Son of a *****. Simmons, check it out." The agent who had complained to his team leader sighed, but raised his gun and stepped around the van to assess the damage. A loud expletive was soon heard. "Jenkins is dead, Corte. No idea how this happened... looks like burning. No signs of damage to the van itself, though."

"Oh, for God's sake. As if we didn't have enough to deal with, we've got idiots attacking federal officers now... Move his body to the back, we're bugging out." After a minute or so of rearranging the contents of their van, the five soon piled into the vehicle and buzzed off.

"Well... that was a thing," was the best Mark could come up with to reflect on the events. "Justin, do my nerves a favour and don't wave that staff around. We'll examine it properly once it's under containment." The sound of another van's engine reached his ears. "Speaking of which..."

Sure enough, the Pandora team had arrived; Mark recognised the driver, giving Lanette a short wave with his free hand. Four guys in armoured suits jumped out of the back, however, two of whom shared the weight of a large and heavy-looking container bearing what looked like a mixture of arcane sigils and warning labels. The staff was taken from Justin and quickly transferred into the box, closely followed by the pendant Mark had picked up, and the container sealed.

With the magical items contained, the team hustled back into the van, closely followed by the field agents: Mark figured he'd hitch a ride back instead of running, especially in the weather's current state. It seemed to have turned bad rather quickly.