Children of The Divine (IC)

[Naamah]

Pyle Brands, Short-Trip-To-Fuckedsville

Aiden draws the small, non-metallic knife he'd had hidden when Agatha turns to Emmett. "Oh, no," his voice soft and boyish. "You've called the police. Whatever will we do. However will I talk my way out of that."

He comes close, displaying the blade to her, leans over her chair with malice glinting in his eyes, whispering. "My dad knows where I am. And by the way, Miss Insufferable Know-it-All?"

He stabs - her tablet, pinning it to the desk, and smiles sweetly, all cruelty gone. "I'm a year older than you."

Drawing out the knife from the ruined tablet, he giggles as he jumps the desk - sweeping plenty of glassware and concoctions onto the floor - and books it to the exit. "Yep, I think it's time to get out too," he calls to Emmett as he sprints out the door.

[Scorpodael]

Jack looks over at Klaus, eyeing the thrall for a moment, before looking back at Gunnar. "Well, let's see... I think I can work out half of who's over there with a fair bit of accuracy... It's a scion, who is either violent enough or just plain reckless enough to come charging in here- Cheerfully- despite your offer of hospitality, if you hadn't decided that he or she needed a refresher on the consequences. And is on the side of the Titans, of course. Narrows it down a bit to one or two choices. I'm going to say... MacBride." Then he shrugs. "For the other, of course, I don't really have a clue, but let's see if I'm right, shall we? Worst thing that could happen... Well, that'd be a raging MacBride charging out that door, needing to be subdued before he can bring us to harm, But probably the most will be that I look a bit of a fool, aye?"

Then he raises the radio, pushes the Talk button, and speaks in his very best- not very good- Irish accent. "Oi! MacBride! Get your psychotic Irish arse out here!" Then he lets go of the button for a moment. "And your little friend!" Another moment. "And the mead! Nothing but wine and water on a Norse table? Not bloody likely!"

[Jay 2K Winger]

Gunnar Forson's Estate, Dining Room (Johnny, Jack, Lupo - Forson, Klaus)

Forson just gives Jack a sigh, sounding almost long-suffering. "Really, is this all necessary? As for the mead, well, two reasons. One, after drinking the same brew for four hundred years, I've decided to expand my palette a tad. And two, none of you are Aesir-kin, so I figured you'd appreciate something else."

He glances to Lupo. "No? I assure you, for all my boasting, I'm sure it would be a close contest. Still, if you don't want to arm-wrestle..."

That's when the radio squawks in Jack's hand. "Word o' advice, lad," a deep, Irish voice replies over the radio. "Don't go swingin' above yer weight class."

The door to the other room opens at last and two people walk in. The second man we'll describe first. He's tall, wearing a dark jacket over a light blue button-up shirt, left open at the collar. He's Latino, his dark hair slicked back. He has a charm of some kind on a string around his neck, as Aztec-looking sunburst with a single black feather hanging beneath it. One hand is at his back as the other, in front of him, fingers what appears to be a loop prayer beads, black and tuquoise. He has a very calm demeanor as he regards the men in the room.

Of course, spotting this second man would depend on being able to look away from the first that enters, who can only be Morgan MacBride. He is tall-- probably six-foot-six-- and packed with slabs of muscle. In spite of the mountain chill outside, he wears a tight sleeveless top, revealing the tattoos crawling up his arms. His dark red hair is a tangle reaching down to his shoulders, and his stare is pitiless. One hand casually leans on a twisted length of wood-- a traditional shillelagh. The other carries a small wooden cask, which he tosses to Forson. Forson catches this easily and sets it on the table.

The reason it's difficult to look away from MacBride is because the man exudes an undeniable aura of menace. It reaches down into the primitive subconscious and flips all those switches for fear. The kind of fear that Man's simian ancestors felt when a big, monkey-eating predator came stalking through the jungle, and it was time to get up in the trees and hide. Much is known about the fight-or-flight response, and MacBride's presence flips that switch to 'flight' and cranks it all the way up to don't stop running.

The only people in the room who appear to be unfazed by it are Gunnar Forson and Klaus the thrall, and the latter only because he's so solidly under the jotun's control that he doesn't have the luxury of being afraid.

"I see me reputation precedes me," MacBride says, staring pointedly at Jack.

Pyke Brands, SCIF Lab (Aiden, Emmett, Fiona - Agatha, Susana)

Susana fights like a demon. That thrust may have been (mostly) dodged, but it still leaves a noticeable gash across her collar bone. The palm thrust she doesn't have time to dodge, and succeeds in splitting her lips. Spitting blood and fury, the swordswoman starts striking with elbows and knees, unable to bring her weapon to bear in the hallway's confines. Eventually she manages to land a kick to one thigh enough to drive Fiona back, then jumps back herself to re-sheath her sword-- whereupon it almost appears to vanish from everyone's perceptions.

Agatha, meanwhile, regards Aiden with dispassionate amusement. "You are trespassing on private property, without cause, and you've been noticed by several security cameras at this point, not to mention breaking into a secured lab. I highly doubt you can talk your way out of that."

She remains unruffled by the malice in his eyes, though her own narrow slightly as she glares back at him, even after he stabs her tablet. The lack of reaction almost seems to say that the data on there was either unimportant or easily reproduced or already backed up elsewhere.

The smashing of the glassware and whatever experiment she was running with said glassware, however, triggers a response. Oh, yes, does it ever. "You insufferable little worm!" she shrieks in fury, and her right arm comes up and twitches-- whereupon a blade pops out of her sleeve on her wrist, glinting with rainbow colors in the light. She slashes out with this, but Aiden has already booked it toward the door. A glance back will show the scientist vaulting the lab table, and her expression, to put it mildly, is thunderous.

This is when a welcome voice calls from down the hall. "Oi, mates!" Solomon's voice booms. "Pull yer socks up!" It's a pretty clear message to get your heads down.

The reason becomes clear moments later as the big Aussie-- one arm hanging limp at his side with a nasty gash on his bicep-- raises a Desert Eagle .50 and fires three times down the hall. Susana whirls at his voice, and has to jump out of the way of the first shot, but the second catches meat as it carves a nice groove across her side. Agatha, meanwhile, flinches out of the way, just in time to have the third shot give her a slight haircut, and she dives behind cover.

"Time to go!" the Aussie calls.

[Mytical]

Lupo is up and in a fighting stance in a second. "HE should not be your concern." The .. sheer joy in his voice is .. disturbing. He is amping up for a challenge, and he LOVES challenges. As he himself can be somewhat intimidating ((his presence ability)), his flight response is the same as his fight response..to cause him to practically drool in anticipation.

However, he will not make the first move. As much as he doesn't care about his hosts implied threat, he will respect the peace accord until he can not any more.

[Naamah]

Pyke Brands - Corner of Main and Center, Fuckedsville

Aiden grabs the doorframe and takes the turn like Charlie Chaplin, bouncing and dodging and then ducking in sheer terror at Solomon levels a GIGANTIC FUCKING GUN anywhere near him, and shoots at the women. He takes a peek, sees the rainbow knife - the confirmation of suspicious tempered by the realization that now there were two psychotic women out for blood in his vicinity - one directly aiming at him.

He looks up to the ceiling, finds the emergency EXIT sign pointed to a stairwell, and scrambles towards it, grabbing for Emmett to try to get him coming. "Guys! This way!"

As he starts hustling down the stairwell, he brushes his hair back, yelling back up. "SOL! Need the Armory or the Wardrobe - hide the weapons, the guns, the knifes, whatever the hell we've got on us needs to get tossed in there. Only so much I can talk us out of." He tries to smooth his hair down, but keeps the energy in his face. "Selene, help me cover this shit, please please please."

[Chanlin]

Pyke Brands Cardiovascular Workout

Emmett follows Aiden's gaze and is just a few steps behind him.

When Su starts throwing elbows Fi breaks into Mantis style boxing to control her elbows. The kick to the thigh is a complete surprise though and send her back stepping. When Solomon calls out she simply crouches. It take her a brief second after Aiden and Emmett book it down the stairwell before she decides that now is a good time to leave, despite how much she would rather stay and kick the crap out of Su.

"DAMMIT!" She snarls, "This isn't over you trumped up sword fighting whore!" She yells as she heads for the stairway.

[Scorpodael]

Jack stares at MacBride for a few moments, several emotions passing over his face... the first is alarm. Close behind it come the fear... replaced almost immediately by rage, incandescent and hot... before he clamps down on that, too. His left eye twitches a few times, And he snatches up his knife in his right hand. In a flash, he drives the blade, surgically sharp, clear through the palm of his left hand, and all that is left on his face is pain.

There are a few ways to deal with deep-seated, instinctual fear. One is with anger, and Jack has that in spades, volatile as a summer thunderstorm. Something that he's had to clamp down on a bit harder, as of late. But the rage wouldn't have been particularly helpful. Another way is pain... And having a knife shoved through your hand takes your mind off of everything else REAL quick.

"Right... Was not... Expecting that." He says finally, with an accent none of them had heard from him before- somewhere between Hispanic, midwestern, and some sort of Scandinavian. "Lupo... Calm. The Morrigan... the Carrion Crow... I am sure she watches her favored child. MacBride... I do not think he can be killed in combat. And killing him is the only way to put him down hard enough."

Then he seems to gather himself a little more, and looks up at MacBride. "Break his arms, and he'll kick you to death. Break his legs, and he'll chew your face off. Break his jaw and he'll headbutt you into a bloody pulp. Everything around him is a weapon. The floor. The tablecloth. The food. If it can be picked up, or if someone can be shoved into it, it is a weapon that he can use. Wisdom straight from the Night Watch." He pauses, his face twisting in pain again. "And mister MacBride... you have it wrong, a bit. I'm not a fighter. I read too much for that. And my knife is not a weapon, it's a tool- a sacrificial blade. I'm closer to being a priest. Including not having gotten laid in about half a decade." That last sentence he really didn't mean to say out loud, and comes out rather quietly, but it still gets said loud enough for Johnny, at least, to hear.

[Mytical]

Unfortunately, what is said only makes Lupo want to fight him MORE not less. "What you say might be true. Don't forget, I am the same. Only..I am a weapon myself." He grins showing his 'wolf smile' it was harder to keep 'The Wolf' in..and getting harder. He looks at his host. "You want a challenge. Let me fight him. THAT is a challenge."

[Jay 2K Winger]

Gunnar Forson's Estate, Dining Room-cum-Impromptu Dick-Waving Contest (Johnny, Jack, Lupo vs Forson, Klaus, MacBride, Aztec scion)

Johnny gapes as Jack suddenly stabs his own hand like that. "By Olympus, are you insane?" He glances at Jack's face, and adds, "Don't answer that." He does hide his own amusement at the sentence he overheard toward the end.

MacBride's fingers squeeze onto the hardened knot at the head of his shillelagh, visibly whitening and actually causing the tough wood to creak. His eyes glitter with anticipation as Lupo starts psyching himself up, and his lips split into a sharp smirk, teeth glinting. "If ye're lookin' for a fight, ye found one."

The smack of Forson's palm into the table interrupts things. "Not so fast!" The jotun rises, and when he does, he draws himself up to his full height. This is not just to the standard height of the big, proud Nordic businessman he styles himself to be. He reaches that height, and keeps getting bigger. Before long he towers over everyone present, at least eight feet tall, and his features have gone paler, his hair bleaching to a wintery white. MacBride turns his head sharply to look at him, not unlike a bird, veins standing out on his neck as the brute clearly wants nothing more than to leap into the fray.

For a moment, he almost ignores the fact that he's still under the jotun's hospitality, but then the Latino scion speaks. "Peace, MacBride. Let our host speak his piece." With a low, bestial growl, the Irishman subsides slightly.

"I had intended for this to be more of a... two-out-of-three set of challenges," Forson booms, "but apparently the reigning champion here," he gestures disdainfully at Lupo, "doesn't have enough faith in his abilities to defeat me in a simple arm-wrestling contest." He sniffs slightly. "Plus, to be honest, I expected either the truth-seer or the Aesir-kin to show up."

"But, if you're so eager to fight, then so be it. There are rules, however." He looks at the team. "One fight. One-on-one. No one else is to interfere. The fight will go on as long as it has to, and it goes until either man falls. If your champion wins, you can have what you wish as a prize. If our champion wins..." He pauses and then glances at the Latino scion, who shrugs. Forson smiles. "If our champion wins, then you'll owe me a favor."

"Yeah, that sounds fair," Johnny mutters.

"Relax," the jotun grins. "I'm not asking you to utterly betray your kin come the final battle. But I may require a boon of you in the future. Something to just... increase my standing."

Johnny hesitates, looking to Jack. "If we don't agree, I have a feeling Hardcase McPsycho over there is going to go ballistic anyway, and he's got bad news written all over him." He sighs. "Fine, we agree."

Forson nods with a smile. "Then we have an accord, and the fight is on."

Which is the cue for MacBride to suck in a breath, and then he's closing the distance to Lupo in a flash, the shillelagh swinging down in an overhead slam.

Pyke Brands, Hallway Outside SCIF Room

Susana had managed to hold her own again with Fiona when the latter went into Mantis Style, absorbing a few blows while dealing some of her own. Her style seemed to be adapted from Snake Style, and she strikes fast and hard when she does get an opening. Fiona isn't likely to avoid a few bruises herself. Then, of course, things get complicated when Solomon and his Big Freakin' Gun turn up.

Solomon advances to cover the others' escape, keeping the Desert Eagle leveled toward the SCIF. Susana, clutching her injury, glares hatefully up at him. She draws an arm back, reaching up over her shoulder, but pauses as Agatha's furious scream bellows out from the lab.

"Mistel, you motherless mongrel, I will find you! You and everyone you love!" She doesn't add what she plans to do after she finds them, but that is somehow more terrible. Then there's a pause, and she can be heard making a sharp inhalation before she speaks again, and this time the icy calm is back in her voice. "Su, let them run for now. It makes little difference at present anyway."

Baring blood-stained teeth, Susana rises and glares at Solomon, who keeps the gun aimed in her direction as he moves into the stairwell. Once the door is shut, he gives the push bar a sudden twist, the metal bending under his fingers, managing to jimmy the door shut before he lurches to the stairs after the others. Selene is on the next landing, eyes wide, a bit disheveled looking.

Solomon pulls out his ring of keys and tosses these to Selene as he pauses to check the bleeding gash on his arm. "Right. Armory, Selene. Stash the weapons, and anyone what's injured, get in there, too, we should be okay until we can get out somewhere secure..."

Then he registers what Aiden is saying. "You think you can talk us out of this?" Solomon gapes at him.

[Scorpodael]

Jack huffs a bit, looking over at Johnny. "Never been terribly stable at the best of times. It was a choice between doing this, running away, or attempting to disembowel him with my teeth. This one was going to go the best." He says, blinking a bit. "... Right, do you have any bandages? I... may not have thought this through quite as thoroughly as I should have." Jack mutters, shaking his head a bit, before pointing at the other scion. "You there! Come. Sit with us. We can have a little chat while the brawlers... Well, brawl." He says, reaching down into the pouch at his side, and drawing out a bit of meat- one of the raw hearts he keeps around. Not much use for dealing with injuries, but eating it will make him feel a bit better, if only psychologically.

[Naamah]

Pyke Brands, Stairwell

Aiden literally tosses the knife into the armory, followed by the ring and the tazer. He takes a deep breath, turns and flips off the doorway. "Cry harder, you cowardly little shit - the only bad thing about derailing Rag is that your daddy won't die too." Something is... well, to put it politely, something about Agatha seems to have touched a nerve in Aiden.

Then he breathes again, exhales deeply, and tilts his head to Solomon, that twinkle returning to his eye - albeit a bit very incredibly manic. "I promised Fiona oceans of hooch, and when it comes to promises involving booze, I fucking keep them. Sol, get a bandage on that - wait, here -" He lays his fingers onto the wound, coating his fingers in blood - turns and wiggles them in front of Fiona. "On your brow, right at the hairline so it looks like it's coming through from your scalp. Act - well, act stoned, it's pretty close to concussed and we can work it. Selene, I need the video deleted, need it to look like it was taken offline right after we went onto the elevator - show them we were invited in. Emmett - I'm about to weave an absolute basket of lies to float us down the Nile and into the hands of safety - hopefully she's got nice tits - so try not to wince too hard."

He tilts his head, waggles his fingers. "Right, betrayed rage, absolute disbelief, righteous indignation. Time to juggle. Come on." And his shoes clatter as he jumps down the stairs two and three at a time.

[Mytical]

(Worked out between me and Jay...the fight so far)

Mike liked these type of fights. One on one, as it should be. Where he excelled. He was almost disdainful of the brutish rush, and attempt to hit him with the weapon. He expected more after the way Jack had built this guy up. Dodging easily, he lets his mind focus on his enemy. The others would have to watch out for themselves..the world dropped away except for he and his foe. He launches a couple of body blows, going for the wear down..not the knock out until he got as much as he could from his opposition.

The blows land, and there is quite solid muscle and sinew to absorb it. MacBride doesn't even grunt or seem to register the impacts as his club smashes into the table, sending glasses and tableware jumping up at least an inch before clattering and crashing back down.

MacBride, for all his fearsome presence and build-up, does not do anything fancy. When his shillelagh swing misses, he simply whirls around, the hardened wooden club coming around laterally, but the turn continues, a duck or dodge anticipated, and the Irishman's foot kicks out.

A wear down may be the only way to take a beast like MacBride down.

[Nearly Ruined]

He cringed and took a long, slow step away from her. No one ever came all the way out here and visited him just to say hello.

"Well," he said dryly. "I would entertain you, but..." he sighed and tossed his head back towards the office, then stared out at a sea of run down buildings across the street. The place had been on fire all night and there still wasn't any trace of police, firefighters, or anyone paid to be concerned with his situation... in the distance, five different prayer bells were ringing, an arrhythmic sea of noise that grated his senses and made him feel weary. There was no point in trying to beg off - he'd been taking the call for years, and in far more dire circumstances. It was just that...

"I have a guest. And whenever they ask me for a couple of minutes, it always ends up decidedly longer than that."

Sometimes weeks.

Sometimes years.

He had them to spare, so consideration was out of the window, it seemed. He stared at her blankly, seeing if he could read whether it would be the former or the latter from her expression.

[Chanlin]

Pyke Brands, The Daring? Escape

Emmett just nods, "Shouldn't be an issue. It's not that I completely hate lies, I just can't do it myself. And you'd be surprised how often people lie." He pauses and then eyes Aiden, "Then again, maybe not." During this conversation he tosses his own hand gun that he got from Solomon back into the armory.

Rather than use just fake blood, Fiona does as Aiden suggested and then uses her Harmless Old Man illusion to make it look like shes sporting a few nasty bruises and to hide the gash from Su's sword. She also makes her staff look like a skateboard again.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Wolf vs Carrion Crow - Mike 'The Wolf' Hammer vs Morgan MacBride
// GM Note -- Worked out between me and Mytical

Mike keeps it simple also, by dancing back swiftly out of reach. As soon as there is an opening, like the pro he is, he is back in working on the body. It's like a strange dance. McBride can not seem to hit the nimble Hammer, but it is like chopping down a tree for Mike. Mike's years of experience in a ring is a bit hampered by the people in the room and the furniture.

However, he is not cat calling or teasing McBride. He is all business.

MacBride is faster than a man his size should be, especially an obvious brute like him. Still, for every dodge that The Wolf makes, The Carrion Crow is already there in his face again. Fists like hammers swing, and feet like anvils kick out, always just a moment too late to connect, or almost effortlessly blocked or dodged. Mike lands his blows, but if wearing down his opponent is like chopping down a tree, then MacBride is a redwood.

But MacBride's extremities are only one danger. That shillelagh is still to be reckoned with. The wood is hard, and even to the Roman-kin champion's Divine-enhanced strength, it is unbreakable. After another backhand swing of the club is ducked and Mike closes in to deliver his next series of body shots, however, MacBride snaps the shillelagh back around and catches the knobbed end in his other hand, pulling it sharply against the fighter's back, pinning him in place. "Ye can't dodge forever!" MacBride snarls. In a flash, he drops the shillelagh and clamps his hands together at Mike's back, squeezing tight in a fearsome bear hug. With a roar, he lifts Mike off his feet, then swings him back and forth to further constrict the air from his lungs and prevent him from getting his bearings.

But Mike 'The Hammer' Wolfe is not the champion for nothing. He bell-claps MacBride's ears, stunning him just long enough to drop the bear hug, allowing Mike to shift his wait up, wrapping his arms around MacBride's head, clamping under the jaw, wrapping his legs around the midsection to restrict the breathing as he cranks on a guillotine choke hold.

Grunting, MacBride's fists now pound at Mike's body, every blow betraying just how devastatingly powerful the Morrígan's favored son is. But it does him little good, as Mike holds onto the choke. This is a "blood choke" and quite a quick way to incapacitate an opponent if you know what you're doing. And Mike Wolfe is not an MMA champion for nothing.

Realizing what is happening, MacBride lets out a muffled roar as he swings Mike around and attempts to drive him through the dining table. It smashes under the strain, plates and glasses and flatware jumping. A lot of it ends up raining down on the two, but Mike's grip remains unbroken, even if the collision may have hurt. And MacBride has gone limp, the blood choke doing its job and rendering the Irishman unconscious.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room - Johnny and Jack talk shop with the Latino scion

Johnny just gives Jack a worried glance at this, before grabbing a cloth napkin off the table. "Here, use this until we get a chance to properly tend to that wound." He sighs a little, helping pull the cloth tight around the stab wound to the palm. "You Aztec types have this weird thing with self-mutilation, don't you?"

"Not all of us," the other scion declares as he pulls up a chair beside the others.

"I'm just remembering this girl I ran into once," Johnny shakes his head. "I think she was Xipe Totec's daughter."

The Latino nods. "Orlanda. Yes, she's a more extreme case. I think I met her at one of Rutledge's functions."

Johnny looks at him more pointedly now. "You know, I try to remember all of us that are at those functions, but I don't recall meeting you."

The scion gestures almost dismissively with the hand with the prayer beads. "You, if I recall correctly, had absconded with Ms. De La Croix."

Johnny pauses for a moment, then smiles and nods. "Oh, yes. That was a good time."

"I really do regret that we seem to be on..." The Latino scion pauses a bit, as if searching for the proper term, "opposite ends of this situation. I'm sure we both have the same ends in mind."

"You're trying to start Ragnarok," Johnny points out.

The Latino presses his lips together in a thin line. "Well, yes, that much is true," he says flatly, almost annoyed.

Johnny demands, "Why?"

This is the point wherein MacBride and Mike Hammer slam into the table. When the mess finishes splattering down, the Latino rises and leans over to inspect the aftermath. "It would seem that MacBride has lost," he informs their host.

Gunnar Forson sighs. The jotun has returned to his more human size. He shrugs. "Very well, it was a fair contest. Klaus?" The thrall looks over at him. "Go retrieve the Heart, would you?"

Meanwhile, at Pyke Brands - Aiden, Emmett, Fiona, Selene, and Solomon prepare for some epic bullshitting

The door to the next floor is opened into the Armory for the stashing of weapons and gear, and then Selene sits against the wall, tapping furiously at her laptop as she works to wipe the cameras on the floor they just vacated. She doesn't speak, but her eyes and tense stance definitely suggests that she's rattled by whatever happened when Susana had found them.

Solomon glances over. "If there's one thing Mr. Twisty's good at, it's bullshit artistry. Follow his lead." He also gives Emmett a look. "If there's any concern over wincing during the bullshitting, I could give you a couple of body shots to explain it away-- aches and pains sort of thing..."

Regardless of whether this offer is accepted, the Armory is closed and locked after everything is stashed, and then everyone finishes up their 'costuming and makeup' for the 'show.' Once everyone gets into character, they head down the stairs to the main floor, where they wait for Aiden's lead.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans - Ko-shi is about to make Hassan's life a lot more complicated

Ko-shi nods. "It's no rush at the moment. You can finish your current business before we must attend to ours." She hands him a business card. It's for the New Orleans office of the Erewhon Foundation, a charity organization that provides aid in various needful locations across the world. It is also run by a demigod-level scion, Aaron Rutledge, who makes a point of using the organization to find and help awakening scions find their feet in the world.

Jotted on the back of the card is a cell phone number. "There's a big Fate-tangle coming up," she pauses, brow knitting, "or something like that. Word is that Carrefour's involved in it." She nods to the card. "Give me a call when you're done with your current business, and we'll discuss what's going on."

That done, she presses her palms together and gives him a little bow. "Ja ne," she offers, and then blithely walks away.