[Malevolence]

Mercer's caution pays off sooner than he expected. He's nearly finished marking the exit paths he'd scoped out with AROs so that he could share them with the team, or find them in the dark or smoke if it came to it, when the situation with the Old World elf and the Amerind human erupts into violence. Mercer sighed to himself and finished his internal map of the exits. The elf had provoked the large man, hoping to draw him outside for a fight, but the man was ready to go now, and made his move first. Not that anyone would care, but the man attacked first, so at least there was that.


When the first lightning bolt went off, Mercer stiffened. He wasn't a subtle man, so he wasn't really in a position to judge, but even in the loud and smoky night club, the bolt demanded attention. Between the first bolt and the second, Spitfire's feeds started pouring in and he could see Shur paying very close attention to the inside of the club, almost like he couldn't quite believe what he'd heard and was waiting for someone to tell him that the audio system had had some malfunction or something and everything was, in fact, alright. When the second bolt lit the inside of the club, even drowning out the lighting in the garishly lit sections, he bolted (pardon the pun) into the door. Shortly after, Mercer saw him emerge from the inner end of the entry hall looking around the club for the source of the disturbance. It wouldn't take him long to focus on the elf and the havoc he'd wrought - people were rapidly clearing away from where the fight had broken out, leaving an ever widening wasteland of hastily evacuated tables and overturned chairs with the guilty party in the dead center. The only other people nearby were the poor sod who had taken the first errant bolt and a couple folks that were a little slow on the uptake. or were they there by choice?


Mercer watched the scene unfold, making no motion to stand or move to the elf's aid, though he was wound like a spring, knowing it was only a matter of moments before he'd have to act. Would they be making a break for one of his exits, nicely mapped out in AROs like the emergency lights marking the aisle of an airplane, or would the bar erupt in a brawl, requiring a fighting retreat? Or would his darker fears prove themselves true, and an ambush be sprung, turning this into a fight for their lives?


Tune in next time to find out! he thought darkly to himself and tried to look only casually interested in the proceedings as he kept vigilant watch.

[Tecumseh]

Achak's mind reels as Lola slinks up to him, her dark brown eyes looking up at him coquettishly. She steps inside his personal space, turns around and shimmies. Reaching over her shoulder, she hooks her finger into the top button of his dress shirt and leads him into the Champagne Room like a dog on a leash.

After transmitting his request for a large stack of paper bills to the hostess at Kadie's, he manually switches off his commlink so that he can give Lola his undivided attention. She leads him to a cushioned booth - which might actually be upholstered in velvet, unlike the velour in the main room - in a dark corner for dark deeds. She gently guides him into position, then pushes him down easily. Achak is reminded that despite her soft looks and sensual demeanor, she is still an ork and an athletic one at that. For all his strength, she could probably mop the floor with him if she felt like it. He secretly hopes that she does.

The music builds, as Lola selects one of Orxanne's early orxploitation hits to lead off the set. She sways back and forth rhythmically, enthralling him with her magic. Achak feels the charge, like all his senses are tingling. If he stopped to think about it he might recognize the feeling is Flickr electrocuting people downstairs, but for now Lola is getting all the credit.

[bangbangtequila]

His foe crumpled to the floor, a particularly unhealthy looking hole damn near clean through his torso, complete with protruding, smouldering ends of ribs, leading Flickr to believe he wouldn't be getting back up. Likely ever. He would've felt some remorse, knowing the man didn't really deserve to be killed over a bar fight, but the Wolf inside was growling, and that was always louder than compassion for a vanquished enemy. Out of immediate peril, however, the elf turned his attention to the bystander he'd inadvertently scorched with an embarrassed frown. Sloppy. You're better than that. Make it right. He raised both hands palm outward in a placating gesture. This was something he was never overly good at - he made war, not peace - but wiping out a bar full of people wouldn't be good for staying low. "Please, allow me to heal you" He said to the wounded man, his musical lilt failing to hide the earnestness in his voice, though it was quite likely that wouldn't diffuse any tension among those supporting the Amerind. He was counting on the lack of profit in defending the dead to help with that.

[rednblack]

As the bolt hits him, the Amerind is lifted off the ground, his body immediately tensed, and then he crumbles with a freshly opened and cauterized wound in his chest, his head snapping backward as he bites into his tongue, nearly severing it.  And then he was still. 

There's a scream to Flickr's right, and the high-pitched crash of a steel serving tray hitting the ground and the glass bottles and shot glasses shattering as they followed that echoes out oddly amongst the pulsing club music.  While most of the crowd backs away, leaving upturned chairs, and a few bottle break -- Are those for weapons? Flickr wonders -- the young woman who had so coyly offered Flickr a free drink rushes forward, and bends down to the Amerind.  She doesn't know whether to cradle his head, put pressure on his wound, or abandon him to search out a medkit, knowing that he may be dead by the time she returns.  If he's not dead already.  "What the frag did you do to him?" she howls behind Flickr as the elf offers his services to the man mistakenly hit by his first bolt.

The man is human, of indeterminate ancestry, and cradling his head while his body tries to pull him up from his stool, and back.  "Stay the fuck away from him, man!" the companion calls out, clearly aware that no matter how fast he runs, he can't outrun a bullet, much less an arc of electricity from the approaching mage.

All at once the music cuts out and the lights come on, momentarily blinding everyone in the club.  At their table, Mercer and Spitfire see their connections flicker out on their respective devices as electronic static floods the interior.  Flickr catches more movement on his periphery and spins to see two bouncers converging on him from opposite ends of the club.  There's the big troll who patted him down outside, approaching quickly but still about thirty meters away, a machine pistol in hand and at his side, who yells out, "Stop right there, fragger.  Get on your belly, and close your eyes!"

From the opposite end of the club, near the door to the champagne room an ork approaches.  He's closer, probably no more than twenty meters out, and he's pulling a baton from underneath his cheap suit jacket.

There's a brief hush from the crowd, or sections of it anyway, as they wait to see what the murderer does next.

"I said drop, fragger!" the troll barks again, raising the gun and holding its bead on Flickr.  The machine pistol looks like a toy in the toll's hands, but it's no less deadly.  The ork begins to circle around, and the crowd gives him a wide berth, though a man with CAS accent says, "Hoi, the pointy ear was jus' defending hisself now," but another voice chimes in, "Bulldrek, he was looking for a fight.  I heard him."  This second voice comes from behind Flickr, maybe issued by one of the men siting near or with the Amerind. 

Upstairs, Achak is momentarily pulled from his reverie by the mechanical sound of a door sliding into place.  It's close, probably up by the stairwell entrance, and Lola tenses a bit in his lap.  The music up here, though, just keeps on pumping.

[Malevolence]

The lights come up and Mercer's phone vanishes from his awareness. Fragging Jammer! he thinks, almost reflexively. Almost as reflexively, he reaches behind him to the base of his neck and pulls out the tip of a thin cable he had mentally ejected from the implanted data jack there. He pulls the cable down and plugs it into his phone. Immediately the AR readouts jump back into his vision. He can still see the feeds from Spitfire's drones as well as his own Roadmaster.


There are two bouncers closing in on Flickr, weapons drawn, and he sends off a quick message to Achak.
<<@Achak [Mercer] Don't get too comfy, we might have to shuffle on out soon. The elf ain't exactly subtle.>>


The status displays for his armor and shock glove are absent from his AR feeds, the jammer apparently strong enough to keep them from linking up even though they were literally inches from the commlink. "Hey," he calls to Spitfire as quietly as he can, all too aware that with the music off, sounds carry. Once he has Spitfire's attention, he makes a show of trying to get signal on his commlink, "think you can add us to this dance card?"

[bangbangtequila]

The troll kept the bead right on him, steady as anything. Tough crowd like this, he must be good. Too good to hose me down in a crowd. The thought was lightning fast, the tension of the situation jacking up his reflexes so fast, it seemed like everything moved through water. Normally  it took spellcraft to heighten them, but he was wound like a spring after the long journey. Still, he would give the troll the benefit of the doubt, knowing he would simply want this over. His palms outward, his supercharged senses keeping close track of the various guards closing in, he took a slow, steady step to go around the man between him and the alley, opening his mouth only to say "I am leaving." His shoulders and knees all loosen, the elvish training following Old World thinking forcing his body into a state of relaxation, in order to more swiftly react. The way these Westerners all stayed wound tight all the time, it was amazing they could move at all.

If Shur gets extra feisty:
The troll clearly has no intention of letting me go. His posture, his tone, and the fact that he just went hot drove it home. Time to do this the really easy way. Raising one hand, he snaps his fingers as he spins on the ball of his left foot, pushing off as he does so towards the alleyway door. The moment the spell closes itself around him, however, he pivots again, this time taking a little bit of care to stay some distance away from the other patrons as he headed out the front door. He would tell the others, but knows better than to waste the precious seconds of surprise that he should be using to escape or risk revealing his position. Even the awakened shouldn't see through his disguise very quickly. He ducks through the door and darts down the street, wanting to make some distance before anyone comes out to hear his flight.

If Shur is amenable to this killer simply making his escape:
Flickr keeps his eyes locked with the trolls, slowly edging himself around the other guards, careful to not make a sudden move or antagonize them into turning his luck around. He was attacked with a weapon before responding in kind, so he should be more or less covered under the law, but it was always better to simply be gone, he'd found. It was a shame the man had refused his healing, but seconds after being hit hard by a bolt of lightning doesn't leave most people in the most receptive of moods.

[bangbangtequila]

As his spell formed around him, he felt some relief. As his actions showed, he never shied away from a fight, and was quite happy to cut his way through anyone foolish enough to raise arms. This, however, would not be a worthy conflict. The amerind man had shown an unhealthy interest, and that was enough to raise his hackles, then had compounded his aggravating demeanor with racism and envy of the magical, and sealed his fate by pulling a weapon. These men, though, they were doing their jobs and just trying to drink. It would not be honourable to unleash the full scale of his powers, and avoiding the fight would not be cowardice, but prudence. This spell represented that wisdom, and allowed him to avoid lethal action. His other foot hit the ground. The spell was ripped to shreds. That hope, of leaving it at this, of simply calling it over, fell to just as many pieces. He hoped the troll was smart enough not to open fire. Before he could react to the lost spell, however, he found out.

[rednblack]

Flickr feels the comforting shroud of his invisibility spell surround him and then almost immediately be pulled away in tatters.  "Oh no ya don't," a voice from the crowd rang out, probably the same man who had spoken in the Amerind's defense just a moment ago.  The spell had slowed down the approaching bouncers, though, as they paused to see if they could ascertain which direction he was making out in. 

"I said on your fraggin' belly, chump" the doorman calls out again.  "Let's go the easy way this time, scan?"

Flickr knows exactly what he was up to.  The big troll is spending more time than necessary trying to engage Flickr in dialog.  He has to know the elf wasn't just going to lay down and put himself at the mercy of these men, much less the crowd.  No, he was trying to keep Flickr's attention in his direction while the ork closed in, which Flickr notes he is doing quite well.  Good speed for a big guy.  Probably can't work that stun baton in a fashion near precise enough to tag him, but unless he continues to go hot, Flickr can see his options dwindling. 

[bangbangtequila]

Flickr can tell this is swiftly becoming an untenable stalemate. It wasn't a fight yet, but if they got their hands on him, he would either be dead or kept held tight until they dealt with a spellslinger hard enough to kill a trained soldier in a blink. The troll - Shur, he recalled hearing - was smarter then he looked, trying to keep the swift elf's eyes forward while his minions circled. Unfortunately for him, the combat sense, along with his preternatural intuition, kept Flickr two steps ahead. He summoned up his will and channelled the mana carefully into his nervous system. As the magic flooded, he felt a surge of energy sweep through his body, powering his mind and body to push him into new action. It was only a stopgap measure, but it might just give him the edge he needs to finally break clear. It was time to move. His eyes locked to Shur, his muscles tense...

[rednblack]

"Ya ain't walkin' out, chump," Shur says confidently.  He continues advancing forward, closing the distance between himself and Flickr to just under ten meters.  The other ork circles around in an attempt to limit Flickr's escape routes.  It's a practiced maneuver, one the two bouncers are no doubt adept at enacting.  Shur continues to eye the elf through the sites of his machine pistol, no doubt running the odds on hitting this spritely fellow against that of the cowering club goers.  If he keeps his aim high, it shouldn't be much of a worry.

"So what's it gonna be, slick?"

[Malevolence]

The situation was spiraling out of control. Flickr had tried to take the fight outside, but had pushed the Amerind's buttons a little too hard. Or it was staged to look that way, the paranoid part of him suggests. Either way, the cowering Amerind was egging on the crowd and the bouncers were closing. All the bouncers should want was to have the violence take place anywhere but in the club. Once the perpetrators were out of the building, they should care less what happens. But here they were, stating that the elf wouldn't be allowed to just walk out. Why wouldn't they let him leave peaceably?


Again, spiraling out of control. Time to try to get things back on track - wrap up the conflict and get out of Dodge. One of these days, he'd find out what it was he was doing wrong that trouble seemed to find him so often.


He stood up from his seat, keeping his shock glove hidden in the pockets of his coat, but his other hand free to gesture. He activated the greatcoat's subtle influence, subsonic audio and barely visible patterns combining to create a subconscious effect on the audience, sort of like hypnosis, making them more susceptible to his persuasion.



"The elf here tried to take the fight outside, but throw rug here," he indicated the Amerind rapidly expiring on the floor, "threw a dirty punch using smuggled knucks. Your friend was looking for a fight, he got one, he lost." His gaze shifted so that he was staring the Amerind mage straight in the eyes, "You wanna stop cowering there and take your beef with the elf outside, chummer, that's a fight I'd like to see." His gaze remained, unflinching, as the challenge hung in the air.

[rednblack]

Upstairs, Ms. Lovelytush halts mid-grind on Achak's lap, and says, "Drek," before scampering off and tapping a secret panel in the wall, which pulls back to give a view of the lower level.  Achak feels his attention divided between Lola's bent over form, complete with askew G-string, and a brief glimpse of the chaos that's ensuing below.

"Someone geeked Chris," she says, as if that name should mean something to Achak.  "The fragger," she adds as an afterthought.  Whether she means the killer or Chris isn't clear.

Over the din of the music in the VIP room, Achak's enhanced hearing picks out Mercer's voice below.  Seems the new team leader has already taken to feeling protective of the new mage.

Downstairs, the bouncer's don't necessarily pause in their advances, and Shur certainly keeps his machine pistol trained on the running elf, but Mercer can see the value of some of his words striking home in the way that they carry themselves, as if little seeds of doubt have been planted at the base of their necks.

"Back off, breeder," Shur says, regardless.  "Can't have no killing in here."

"I'll bite," the second Amerind says, standing.  "Hold fast, young'n."

[Tecumseh]

Achak frowns as Lola jumps up and pays attention to something other than him. It was hard to ignore the *pop* *pop* *fizzzz* he had just felt from his magic sense. Spells going on, spells going off... what are those fraggers doing down there? he thought to himself. Now he knows the answer: killing Chris.

"Come back over here," he says as seductively as he is able, playfully shuffling with the ¥475-worth of paper "bills" that he purchased for his time with Lola. "We're safe up here and there's nothing we can do to help. Let's keep the party going!"

[bangbangtequila]

Flickr, tensed to make his break, stopped and relaxed again, the muscles loosening as Mercer said his piece. The elf had been thinking much the same, though having just butchered a man in the middle of the club and damn near burying another by mistake had left him well aware that nobody wanted to hear him. The breeder stepping up to intervene gave him the hope of avoiding raising the body count, however, and Shur was perhaps, quite lucky he had. As the troll threatened him, brandishing his gun and eying the firing lines with more of practiced eye than was comforting, Flickr felt his bloodlust rise. It had always been a fine balance, for him. His duty had demanded he never rise to the bait, never engage someone first, never make a name for himself as a scrapper or a troublemaker. He had to be unnoticed, and never be a familiar face. Civilians were never in the cards for him, as friends, as neighbours, as anything other than civilians, but he'd always had his unit. Then the catastrophe, and suddenly he was truly alone. He had Seamus, but the man was always at arm's length by necessity. He was alone. Alone.

This first taste of solitude had had a toll, he supposed. This bar brawl should never have gone as far as it did. He had seen the weapon, and let it draw him into unleashing his frustration, the pent up feelings of anger and resentment he'd been unwilling to face. Even as the revelation of the source of his feelings washed the situation with a coat of bitter self-awareness, his fingers tightened into a fist. He should not have started this, but it went against every fibre of his being not to finish it. The other Amerind man stood up, his acceptance of the challenge ringing through to Flickr, and the elf narrowed his eyes. The feelings of abandonment, of loneliness and resentment of his family accepting his voluntary banishment were forced down by the boiling fury that was his spirit. He squared his shoulders off towards his new foe, and gently gestured towards the alley door. He'd never been one for long speeches, and the flood of mana coursing through him made him feel so charged, words would've failed to capture his meaning any way.

[Malevolence]

The tension in the club eased immediately. Even the bouncers looked more relaxed. But the hackles on Mercer's neck rose. Three things were bothering him.


One, the Amerind mage had taken the bait a bit too quickly. He hadn't expected to sway him with his words, but to force him into the conflict by working the crowd. He supposed that the man was smarter than Mercer gave him credit for and had seen that the outcome was inevitable, and simply chose to change the narrative from him being bullied into a fight to bravely welcoming it. Or Mercer had stepped into a trap. He couldn't judge the mage's measure like another mage could with their ability to view auras, and he may have just bitten off more than the elf could chew. The good news was that the elf hadn't texted him a string of expletives indicating his concern, so it seemed like the elf was at least confident that he could win such a fight. Now wasn't the time to mention it, but Mercer would have to convince Flickr that making friends was best left to the group face, so as to hopefully avoid another such incident.


Two, the bouncers had backed down too quickly. Just moments ago he was wondering why they wouldn't just throw the trouble maker out of the club and be done with it, but now he found himself wondering why their attitude had changed so quickly on the word of the Amerind mage. Perhaps they too had seen the change in the crowd, knew that if they denied them a fight it would be them vs. the crowd rather than having the crowd on their side as they had just seconds before. Achak had mentioned that the bar was likely controlled by criminal interests - gangs - and Mercer supposed that some Amerind Mafia could be the current owners and these could be more than mere customers that the elf had irked. Mercer eyed the bouncers to see if they were showing undue deference to the Amerind mage.


That had to be it he tried to convince himself - it was just opponents that could read the crowd. The mage knew he was beat, the guards knew that they were losing the crowd, and they all acted appropriately. But number three, then, really bothered him. The mage had called the elf "young'n". Maybe it was just a casual slip - elves looked young, and really, other than the immortals - which would have nothing to do with a place like this - all of the elves were, what, under 70? Still older than this man here, but "young" in elf terms, where the estimated life expectancy was 200 years conservatively. Or maybe the man simply knew more about the elf than he should, had researched him, followed him, targeted him. Mercer did not like that last option, not at all.


He took a moment to look at the feeds from the drones that SpitFire had shared with him, looking for any suspicious activity outside that might show they were walking into an ambush. At first glance it looked normal - too normal? - but he kept an eye on the feeds just in case. He gestured to the man crumpled on the floor and the other wounded man.


"Before we adjourn to the KO, perhaps we can get these two some help? The establishment here has a medkit, yes?" The KO Corral reference was probably lost on the folk here, but the meaning was likely clear enough. The man that had been winged in the fight was still sitting and looking a bit woozy, but otherwise looked like he'd be fine, and probably really wanted a painkiller or two. The Amerind that had taken the full fury of the elf's magic was a bigger mystery. Mercer was beginning to fear that he might not be getting up. He wasn't exactly smoking, but Mercer could see where some of the zippers on his clothes had fuzed from the heat the current generated as it coursed through him. Even if it hadn't charred his insides, the electricity could stop a man's heart. In the bright glare of the house lights, it was still hard to see if the man's skin had paled from a lack of blood flow.


<<@Achak [Mercer] Might wanna wrap things up, we might have ta git in a hurry.>> Mercer certainly didn't like the thought of one of his team being out of sight, and much less, off comms. He spared a glance at the door to the private suites where Achak had gone, looking for any sign that things were askew. Was that still the same bouncer that had been standing at the door when Achak went in? Was the door lock still intact, showing no signs of forced entry? Was the door still closed tightly, or was that a thin gap he could see between the door and the frame indicating it wasn't securely latched?