Villain's league (IC)

[lucas marcone]

Dile Lass led Roulette out the door and they steped right onto mainstreet. "The square is thisway. Since We came intopower We've started makeing this alot like home. Sorry, America." Dile Lass sighed. "I miss those muddy Mississippi bayous. Anyway... we have some god shopping here want to...."

WEEEOHHHHWEEEOHHWEEOHHH. A squad of cop cars poured out of the station parking lot and headed right for the gun shop. Croc jumped out of his window and headed to the gun shop with them.

[nikename2]

Daemon just stared for a few seconds, kind of awe struck, yet at the same time he couldn't help but wonder why. "So it was like those two.......were........", Daemon commented. The pain within his leg where one of the boys from before stabbed him returned, only this time it was far more intense. Daemon stumbled backward onto a chair and gripped his leg, clenching his teeth. There still was no wound or even a scar. This sudden shock of pain and realization led to an epiphany.

"No mam....errg....I don't think it'll come back. It was all in my head.....the pain...everything. That is how he operates.", said Daemon, getting on his feet. "He gave it as a gift. When I brought forth doubt, it couldn't sustain itself anymore through me."

Daemon regained his composure then looked back at Liz, he then asked, "Perhaps we should find a place to finish our transaction sooner rather then later. I don't think it will be getting any easier to do this kind of thing, with people like him around. So, are you prepared? Or should we head out somewhere to do this. It might be prudent to have an armored truck come over for this."

[Miaka]

Roulette's ear's twitched as the siren's started. Cursed large ears and loud noises. She flinched, but looked after them curiously.
"Wanna go see what that's about?" She asked, before noticing croc running after them.
"Okay, yeah, I really want to see what that's about now."

[lucas marcone]

"Right. Croc shows up at the most dangerous crimes. We find if he dosn't scare them s***less the he can atleast subdue them. He kindof feels responseable for keeping the capital safe." DileLass said as they ran to the gunshop. Three men were shooting it out with the police. The men had already killed about seven cops when their leader ran.


"RUN LEE, RUN!" An older man shouted before being shot in the sholder.

When Croc showed up it was all over. He busted open the back door and tore into the other two. Lee had already made an escape.
After the Two men were in custody The police drove off. In the confusion an ambulance got there and two paramedics were looking after Croc as he sat in the back doorway of the ambulance.

"What happened" Dile Lass asked to noone in general.

"He was shot in the gut and legs." a paramedic said.

[Angel]

When Daemon stumbled, Liz and Crystal instinctively ran to help him, but he recovered pretty quickly. Crystal looked awfully disappointed when he said the copter wouldn't come back.

"So the guy you met... hypnotized you?" It sounded far-fetched to Liz, but not altogether impossible. He disregarded the thought when Daemon mentioned their transaction.

"We can do that here. There's a room in the basement with tough walls just in case I need to do this kind of thing. And don't worry, I won't be shooting it everywhere. I can control the pressure at which I release any metal or diamond. You might need a briefcase or suitcase of some kind, but if you don't have one, you can borrow one of mine." He turned to Crystal. "Stay up here, and let me know if anyone shows up asking for me, okay?"

"Sure." Crystal walked over to the door and pulled up a chair, while Liz led Daemon to the basement, turned on the lights, and headed downstairs.

[nikename2]

Daemon was relieved when Liz mentioned that a briefcase would be sufficient enough for this. After his run in down in North Carolina Daemon was leery of leaving notable signs that would allow him to be tracked. He followed Liz down to the basement, and made note of the mini bar and living room. "Heh, this seems pretty nice. He's not overly lavish with the decor inspite his nigh unlimited capital."

Liz then led Daemon into another room beyond. It had the make of a small workshop, and was unfurnished. The walls seemed to be made of steel and Daemon could see some marks and shears within them. "Well I got to say this is a nice place you got, and no I'm afraid I don't got any kind of suitcase to load up, sorry about that. I pretty much brought only myself, and...well you know, hehe.", Daemon joked, hiding his anxiety about what happen.

[Angel]

"That's fine," Liz reassured Daemon as he walked into the middle of the room. He turned to face Daemon again. "Now, the government doesn't know I have this power, as you may have guessed, but I still have to be careful. If I screwed up and made too much gold or anything at one time, the stock market would crash and I'd suddenly be useless. So however much money you want is going to have to be made in several different kinds of precious stones and metals. Any preferences?"

[nikename2]

"Mostly jewels would be good, diamonds, cubic zirconiums, rubies, the works. I can sell them evenly among the market so it won't cause too much of a problem, and I can reference them to the diamond mining operations in Africa if needed. A gold bar or two wouldn't hurt either though hehe.", Daemon replied. "I don't really intend to sell it all at once though, just enough to finally get things started."

[Angel]

Liz nodded. "That's perfect. This way, if all goes well, neither of us will be caught. This'll only take a few minutes..."

With that, he kneeled on the floor, stretching his forearms out in front of him. He thought very hard about any kind of gemstone that came to him. Within seconds, several different kinds of gems were coming out of his hands, wrists and fingertips - small rubies, little stones of cubic zirconium, emeralds, diamonds, amethysts, whatever came to mind. The place on the floor where the gemstones fell was just a little curved from use, which was pretty convenient. The sizes of the gems ranged from jelly bean to golf ball, and the pool on the floor grew until it was about fourteen inches in diameter.

When this was done, three gold bars slid out of his hands. Liz stood up and smiled. "I'd say that rounds up to about 1.5 billion dollars. Think that'll be enough for now?"

[nikename2]

Daemon looked on as the shallowing in the floor filled up. The display akin to a poor man's pipe dream, truely a testament to the unknown in that one could laugh in the face of conservation of matter. Daemon reached down and picked up a few of the diamonds, staring at them for a few seconds, he then looked up at Liz holding the bars. "This will probably be enough to cover the whole venture, and then some hehe.", grinned Daemon. He then got up and asked somewhat enthusiastically, "So, what have you been up to since that meeting? Blow up any buildings? Spread terror and despair?"

[Angel]

At this question, all of Liz's pride about what he had just done vanished, and he visibly slumped. "To be perfectly honest...no. I've been procrastinating these past few weeks. Only one act of mindless destruction, and it consisted of destroying two traffic lights." He smiled sheepishly. "So unless that led to some wonderful traffic smash-ups, I've been pretty lazy compared to the others."

[nikename2]

Daemon shrugged casually then responded, "Well your not the only one. The most I've done against the nation was burning down the morgue I woke up in. Hell we should go blow up building, or destroy city hall in the meantime. When night falls though I'm leaving this town. I'd welcome you to come along, but I don't think you'll be able to keep up with me."

He then opened up a briefcase lying near the work bench and began loading it up. "I hope you don't mind if I use this one."

[Angel]

Liz perked up at the idea of blowing up a building, but when he heard Daemon was leaving he nodded understandingly. The "wouldn't be able to keep up with me" bit stung a little, but it was probably true, given what he'd heard about Daemon thus far. He's probably faster on foot than most machines, unless he's wearing that armor of his. And since my car is a little plain, he'd beat it for speed easily.

He looked once at the briefcase Daemon had taken. "Nope, that one's fine. I'm pretty sure it has a combination lock." He walked over and looked at the briefcase carefully. "Yup. This one's combination is 4-3-6-2. And, uh, if you don't mind my asking, how are you gonna leave town now that you have no helicopter?"

[nikename2]

Everything was loaded up, he closed it and stared coldly at the door. He then looked back at Liz, his expression suddenly brightening up. "Don't worry about that.....I'll think of something, but in the meantime what do you say? Hell call up Croc, he'd probably get a kick out of this. We'd actually be acting together like our employer appeared to have wanted."

[Angel]

"Hang on one second," Liz responded. He walked out of the rom and called upstairs, "Crystal?"
"What?"
"Is it okay if Daemon and I go destroy a building?"
"Just come back alive before midnight!"
"Okay!"

He turned back to Daemon. "All I know about Croc is that he and Dile Lass managed to take over Laos. I never did get his number...d'you know if they'd post a political leader's cell phone number online?"

[nikename2]

Upon hearing that revelation Daemon was shocked, SHOCKED!! Well not that shocked....

"You could probably Google it, it's Laos for crying out loud! What were they thinking! Oh gee our employer told us to send America into turmoil so he could take over, hay look! Asia!.........Well I suppose through this they could be the next Iran......but still...", Daemon lamented as he strode up the staircase with Liz. "If they're going to play the laughing boy that's fine by me, it'll keep America's eye fixated on them so our operations here will be smoother."

Daemon then went out onto the deck and stared into the sky, taking in the uncharacteristic balmy weather. For some reason he couldn't help but think that he was being watched by an unseen eye. He then picked up his left gauntlet and fitted it on. With a flick of his wrist the top of the gauntlet revealed a hidden sub-machine gun. He aimed it at a tree, then with another flick of his wrist the gun went back into its hidden compartment. "Heh, still got it.", he thought as he fashioned on the rest of his gear. He then walked back inside, waiting for Liz.

[techmaster-glitch]

Five weeks ago

Some random American city

   The hustle and bustle of the big city. Masses of people walking back and fourth, cars driving by, lots of background noise. In a place like this, anyone who blends in becomes effectively invisible. Unnoticed by everyone else, one young man walked among the crowds. He looked exactly like your typical slightly punk-ish late teenager, he barely looked to be twenty. He wore ripped jeans, a black shirt with the emblem, 'Eat my Plasma 'Nade", and a hat backwards over short black hair. He looks to be an absolutely normal, ordinary human being.
   Yeah, right.
   He walked along an intersection, in the middle of a crowd of people. He stopped at an ice cream parlor at the corner, ordered an ice cream sandwich, and sat down at a table. He opened the wrapping around his small treat, pulled small earbud headphones from his pocket, and turned on an iPod. He closed his eyes, munched his food, and bobbed his head to music heard only by him. Looking completely and absolutely normal, average, and ordinary, even though he was in plain sight, he was practically undetectable.
   That's when something out-of-the-ordinary happened to him.
   The young person, who had no name when hiding, because no one actually knew he existed, suddenly felt a cold wave wash over his mind. His eyes snapped open, he let in a sharp intake of breath, and he even almost dropped his dessert. He looked around, luckily, no one had noticed his sudden and seemingly unprovoked startle.
   Looking troubled, he closed his eyes, and listened. Not with his ears, but with his mind. He could hear soundless and voiceless whispers, and though they had no words to them, he understood their meaning:
   Balance is in jeopardy. Dark forces are mustering to create imbalance. You are needed, Planet-Guardian of Earth. You must prevent imbalance.
   The unnamed young man opened his eyes, calmly stood up, and walked away.

Several days later

   The young man finished navigating through an underground tunnel. It took several cars drives, a long plane trip, and a very long walk to reach the entrance of the place. That and the entrance was very well hidden. The young man doubted that anyone but himself could even find it. Even if they did, he was certain there was no way they could take the prize buried at the end. As if it would even be any use to them even if they could attain it.
   The young man reached said end. There was nothing remarkable...except a large solid stone block that was remarkably and perfectly cut, as if by magic. He walked closer, knowing exactly what it really was. In truth, the solid block was not solid at all, but hollow, and sealed by a charm of incredible power that made the block virtually impenetrable. It could not be unsealed by anyone...save for one person.
   Said person walked up to the block, closed his eyes, and placed his hands on the block. He felt around for that familiar charm, and when he found it, the charm did the rest. It scanned him, and then began reading his very soul. The charm was trying to ascertain if the soul that now confidently presented itself was an exact match to the soul-imprint that the charm had remembered.
   It was.
   The young man opened his eyes, smiled, removed his hand from the block, and took a step back. A line of light appeared dead center in the block, splitting the face in half. The line widened, then faded. The entire front face of the stone had disappeared. It was hollow, and inside was...
   Nothing but a perfectly carved wooden staff with a milky-white glass-spun sphere at the top held in place by three spikes curving around it.
   However, the young man reached out to the staff, reverently, and gently grabbed it. The moment he did, there was a blinding flash of white light.
   When the light faded, there was a different man standing in front of the block with the staff in hand. No, not a different person, the face was the same... but everything else was different. He was wearing a full body-fitting red robe-like outfit. The forearms and lower legs of the outfit expanded into cones. The robe itself was just a solid red, no markings or other features. There was a matching red cape clasped around the neck of the outfit. The head of the person, save for the face, was hidden by a swept-back pointed hood.
   He pulled the staff close to him, and whispered to himself, "I am Quaddle, Planet-Guardian of Earth, and I am here to serve the Balance of the World."

Several more days later, or four weeks ago

   "Argh, I just don't get it. Nothing has entered this place in three centuries. Three! And I could have sworn that I cleaned it up before going into hiding. And yet, every time I come back here, every time, it's as if a cyclone came through here!! Gha!"
   Quaddle was quite literally wading though an enormous sea of junk, knick-knacks, tables, shelves, chests, and pretty much anything you could name in an underground hideout. He was picking up things and tossing them around pell-mell, just trying to go forward. Finally he got fed up with what seemed like a lost cause.
   "Oh, sod it!" He said, and gave a mighty swing of his staff. The orb at the end of the staff flashed, and a line of junk jumped out of his way of their own accord, making a straight path. Quaddle gave a satisfied grunt, and walked through the "parted sea" of stuff. He got to the end, swung his staff again, and made another path. He did this until he got to a small room with a strange fixture in the center. He went to this strange thing, and placed his staff in the center of it. The glass orb seemed to transform into light that did not actually give off illumination, and expanded.
   "Now, show me what is powerful enough to create imbalance and drag me out of my peaceful hiding. I was really liking American popular culture. It had a nice robust, chaotic, and upbeat tone to it.." Quaddle said to the expanded light-orb. Something seemed to form inside of it, then it faded into darkness. Quaddle frowned. Whoever he was trying to spy on was smart enough to erect scryblock spells. But, Quaddle mused, if they weren't smart enough for that, they wouldn't be worth his time. He began to re-weave the scrying spell. He probably wouldn't be able to beat the scryblock outright, at least, not without expending more energy than he wanted to. Instead, he could probably try to slip through small holes in the spell. He wouldn't be able to see an hear everything, but he could get the general gist. After several tries, he managed to get what would be the equivalent to a "staticy, fuzzy television signal". And what he could get disturbed him.
   It seemed to be a gathering of evil entities, all called together by an enormously powerful one. Try as he might, Quaddle simply could not get anything from that particular one. All of the scryblock seemed to radiate from it, as well as other perception-distorting and illusion power. It didn't seemed to be magic in Quaddle's sense, but it amounted to the same effects.
   The others were only protected by extension of the main being's power, and thus, he could just barely make them out. One was a mastermind by the name of Sheridanna, one was some sort of mutant-crocodile aptly name Croc led by a small human female also aptly named Dile Lass, there was another human who seemed to be an assassin by the name of Sebastian, one Dr. Anastasia, a self-proclaimed "mad scientist", a very strange gecko-person named Liz with a rather unique ability, a fallen angel Black Knight by the name of Daemon, an actual demon by the name of DarkE, and a rather ridiculous crazed little woman named Roulette.
   The horribly mismatched group, at the shrouded entity's beckoning, were devising the first stages of a master plan with the standard villain's motif of "take over the world". This was certainly nothing new, heroes and villains battled every other decade over this sort of stuff. This time was different, however. Individually, the villains may pose little threat, but with all their abilities, skills, and talents combined, they would be a formidable force. Especially since that none of them realized that they were being used. They were absolutely nothing more than expendable pawns to the Shrouded One, as Quaddle started to think of him/her/it. It was manipulating them like pieces of an intelligent chess set, and the Shrouded One had a vast intellect and foresight-knowledge about them. The chess pieces would move seemingly of their own accord, but the Shrouded One would knew exactly where they would move if he just gives them the right nudge.
   Quaddle knew he was dealing with something truly serious here.

Four weeks later, present day

   For four weeks, Quaddle merely observed the Pawns, as he nicknamed him. He had lost track of the Shrouded One completely. The "main event" of his passive spying was when the Pawns Croc and Dile Lass single-handedly took over the small country of Laos. They had actually managed to transform the small country into something that, superficially, seemed to approach a utopia. The people were actually happy. Well, most of them, at least. Quaddle witnessed the small outbreak of a forming resistance. But it was the evil act of the two Pawns that truely saddened Qaddle's heart. They were pretending to be something good, and had every potential to make it true, but it wasn't. It was a lie, and would reveal itself when the plans of all the Pawns were set in motion. Quaddle mused that, maybe, he could try to convert them, if not to Good, then hopefully to Neutrality or Balance. While he could go and try that, or just go in and "take care' of them, it wasn't the right time. With that in mind, he redirected his attention elsewhere.
   That was when he observed the Pawns Daemon and Liz plotting to commit a wonton act of violence. This was certainly not something that Quaddle usually bothered with, but for some reason, it just got to him. He watched them as the began to exit Liz's house. When they did, he saw Daemon look around, as if he thought he was being watched (as indeed he was), the he practiced with a hidded gun. Quaddle quickly retreated his scry-spell. He removed his staff from the fixture, and the sphere returned to it's normal size and form.
   Then he swathed his way to another room in his small junked-up hideout. This room has an empty arch in it. The arch itself seemed to be crumbling slightly, but there were still runes visible all along it. Quaddle went up to it, and waved his staff.
   Nothing happened.
   Quaddle waved it again.
   Still nothing.
   "Goddamned ten-thousand-year-old portal... I swear, these things do not age well. They require much more maintenance than they should. Why are these the only things that the Planet-Guardians can't make sturdy?" Quaddle said darkly, giving the arch a good kick. He was rewarded with a pained toe. Crusing loudly, Quaddle then settled down to bring the portal back to working order.

[lucas marcone]

"Damnit! Damnit Damnit! I try SO F***IN HARD! I give them safety, job security, more money, and freedom out the ass! and what do the ingrates do? F***! Now i have REBELS to deal with!." Dile Lass looked pissed and exausted at the same time. "Why can't I please everyone?" She hung her head.


"Maybe ther're scared." Croc chimed in.

"Huh?"

"You have too much power. they're scared."

"My GOD Croc YOU'RE BRILLIANT!" Dile Lass gave Croc a big hug despite his protest....and the apin from the wounds. "I knew you weren't stupid!"

[Miaka]

Roulette had turned away the second they'd arrived, not wanting to risk the sight of blood, and stayed a decent distance away.
Even now, with Croc's open wounds, she stood off, to the side, where she couldn't see him, or smell the blood on him... She knew what would happen if she did, and it was never pretty.
"This is problematic... The boss won't be happy with this... Would you like my help keeping it down?  If we can keep it at least somewhat controlled, and off the news, he won't hear about it."

[lucas marcone]

"I've a diffrent idea Rou, one that hopefully won't spill any more blood."
Dile Lass started makeing calls on her cell. from what Roulette and Croc could gather she was calling afew friends, but what she was really doing was calling many top scientists, free minds and polititions of Laos.
"Boys and girls let's write us up a constitution. Croc go with them to the hospital and rest, our guests won't be here for a few days. Rou let's go shopping." Dile Lass said with a grin. "These presidential robes are hell on this figure."

[Miaka]

"Shopping? Aw, crap, I don't have to dress up, do I?" She asked, her face dropping slightly.
"I hate having to try and find clothes I can wear..." Roulette muttered under her breath. You did have to admit that it would be difficult, due to the placement of spikes on her body- her shirts couldn't have a back, much for straps, or extend below her chest, and pant either had to cut off before the knee, or have gaping holes in them.
"I mean... I've got no problem helping you out, but..." She shrugged.

[lucas marcone]

"Come on we're not JUST getting clothes." Dile Lass took Roulette to a car dealership. Almost instantly a man came out and touched his forhead to the ground and was speaking laoian. Dile Lass said something in the same dialect and he took them to an area filled with motorcycles. "I'm looking for something for Croc. He dosn't like to spend money on himself like you would expect."

[Miaka]

"oh. Well, that's good, i guess." Roulette replied, hoestly, a little confused. Most girls just meant clothes when they said shopping, and, honestly... Roulette pegged DL with being a hell of a lot more intelligent than most girls, but just about as 'normal' as villains ever get. Sometimes she had to wonder why she even bothered with the villain bit.

She watched on, her hands in her pockets, and an almost bored look on her face, until they got to the motorcycles. Roulette began to look around, feigning disinterest rather poorly, and unable to help the small, fanged grin as she walked around the lot.

[lucas marcone]

There was more Laosian speaking and the man led them to a nice sporty modle. Dile Lass got on and mimiced a small reving motion on the throttle. "Bad ass enough for Croc?" Dile Lass said in a very girly tone. The bike was a small black rice burner. It looked like it was more for the metro type than Croc.

[Miaka]

((You'll pardon me, I know nothing about motorcycles other than the fact that they look cool. >> ))

Roulette screwed up her face, and couldn't help a raspy giggle at DL's girly act. "Nah. Too small, dontcha think?" She shook her head, and pointed towards a few larger bikes- she didn't know what they were, really, and shrugged.
"I think that kind of thing's more his speed."

[lucas marcone]

"You're proba...deat sweet LIGHTNING!"  Dile Lass saw a chopper in the direction he was pointing. There is no word for the speeds she was reaching to get there. she gave it a once over and began speaking cycle gibberish. the chopper looked alot like ghost rider's bike minus the flames. and it had a large metal bull shaped skull over the headlight so that it shined from the eyes. there was laosian speaking and a cash money transaction. the poor guy almost had a heart attack he was so happy. She started the bike and it rumbled to life. "Wanna take a ride dear?" she asked with a wicked grin.

[Miaka]

"Oh, geeze." Roulette's eyes widened, and she followed DL to the bike, only catching some of what the much, much younger girl had said. She stuttered slightly, as she was offered a ride, and shook her head, somewhat sadly.
"Nah.... these things don't agree with me well." She tapped at one long, pointed ear with a finger. "I've heard the noise if hard enough to bear for people without these. Sides, they make it hard to put on a helmet." She'd tried before, and aving one's ears folded in half for that long caused far too many probles- her skull might have been thick, but not thick enough to succesfuly block rapidly oncoming concrete, should she fall.

[lucas marcone]

"Right then i could use a car too..." Dile Lass looked over the large lot from where she was standing. "Nothing too terribly eye catching...Oh!" She spoke to the dealer and one of his assistants took the bike back to the presidential house. Then put a bow on it and left it in the garage.
"I've seen better cars at a demo durby." she sighed leaning on one of the cars. She didn't notice before. The Shelby mustang was sadly in need of repair.

[Angel]

Liz went to his room when Daemon walked out on the deck. He changed his clothes quickly to a simple black t-shirt, a black jacket and jeans. But before he left the room, he heard the second most out-of-place sound he'd heard that day.

Gunfire...?

He walked quickly to the back door, where Daemon was standing. "What was that from?"  he asked Daemon, who had put on all his gear and didn't look perturbed at all. He probably fired the shots... but what around here is worth shooting?

[nikename2]

"Oh that was me, heh. I was just working on my aim, trying to hit a squirrel I saw off in that tree way over there.", Daemon gestured. "I should get a silencer equiped on these things at some point. Don't think there's enough room for it at the moment though unless I alter the design, and I don't particularily want to go through that hell again, hehe."

Daemon then sized up Liz in his new garb. He appeared to know what he was getting into coming out looking like that. "So, you wanna drive out into the city? Or should we just get started with your neighbors and work our way from there.", Daemon laughed, he was still kind of on edge though. In a weird way he kind of wished that the feeling of being watched didn't dissipate. It's absence could mean a number of things, or have been a part of his own paranoia driving him to believe something was up.