Seaside

[Rebonack]

[Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub]

The fire stealing part gets a bit of a look. "Yeah, I gathered that. I was making a- Yeah, no, never mind. It doesn't matter. Just be careful with the radiation. Not everyone can stomach it."

Not that he's actually stomaching it.

It's just that he already metamorphosed since it was part of the whole coming of age deal.

Anyway!

Stephen is absolutely not making any sense of this guy's ravings.

Clearly something really traumatic happened to him but, really, he hasn't the foggiest idea what it is. And so, without any better ideas, he raises his hands in a calm down sort of gesture.

"Hey, hey, easy there. No one's taking you back. I'm just trying to find out where you ship was on the reef. It's a big area to search."

Sure he COULD search it on his own but that would be a chore and a half. Especially towing an air-breather around.


[Ruins]

"Twelve feet is more than twice your height," Dizzy objects. "Are you saying that only things that are, what, Godzilla sized are allowed to be called giants? That hardly seems fair."

Mostly because there aren't any living things that big.

...

At least not real living things.

Or real living things where Dizzy's from.

But this is the Wood Between the Worlds so who knows what might be lurking around here?

[bc56]

Ruins
"Yes, but I'm tiny," Sele counters. She's small enough that twice her size can't count as large. "What's a Godzilla?" Zee really should give her adopted daughter an education in pop culture.

[Thursday Violist]

Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub

Whilst she's leaving Stephen to talk to the man and try to get sense from his ravings, Harriet will bend over to pick up the piece of paper and read it. Hopefully it's not a map; she has no idea how to read those, except the stylised map of the Vault.

[Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub]

The fire stealing part gets a bit of a look. "Yeah, I gathered that. I was making a- Yeah, no, never mind. It doesn't matter. Just be careful with the radiation. Not everyone can stomach it."

Not that he's actually stomaching it.

It's just that he already metamorphosed since it was part of the whole coming of age deal.

Anyway!

Stephen is absolutely not making any sense of this guy's ravings.

Clearly something really traumatic happened to him but, really, he hasn't the foggiest idea what it is. And so, without any better ideas, he raises his hands in a calm down sort of gesture.

"Hey, hey, easy there. No one's taking you back. I'm just trying to find out where you ship was on the reef. It's a big area to search."

Sure he COULD search it on his own but that would be a chore and a half. Especially towing an air-breather around.

[Port Valdez - Golden Jellyfish Pub]

Harriet is in luck! The piece of paper is not a map.
The paper clearly has been crumpled up and straightened out several times, has some water damage so the ink has spread, and has a couple stains on it. And, on it, there's a bunch of writing on one side, but there's not much. Basically, the paper explains that - for the crimes of questioning orders, a botched surgery, and mutiny, the man is sentenced to death by being thrown overboard, and that he should make peace with his gods before then. From the context, the man in question is pretty clearly the one in front of them.
He ended up surviving, somehow.


The hand gesture is enough to get him to stop ranting and instead think through his thoughts.
He blinks.
And blinks again.
And then, ". . .due south," he says. "Two degrees west of due south from the reef, not that far from it."
He glances at the bottle again.

Port Valdez

The thin tunnel was starting to really be tight for Henry so he’s pretty happy to be out of it. He might not be the right shape for this kind of work.

Henry sticks his head through the four tunnels to see if anything sticks out to him. If there aren’t any obvious hazards, he’ll point to suggest the first from the right.

[Port Valdez - Sea Cave]

There isn't any obvious hazards inside any of the lava tubes, so the first from the right seems as good as any.
June takes a moment to use that device she used earlier, to fire a marker bolt into the wall at the tunnel entrance they came through to get here. Just in case they get lost, it'd be good to know what way's back. She then draws on the map which way they're going, and goes down the lava tube, too, on the right.

The igneous rock that makes up the walls are pretty interesting, but are also pretty dark-colored. The tube itself is fairly large, getting larger as they follow it down, and is somewhat straight. A couple small animals are here and there, but they all hide from the two as they swim by.

Eventually, up ahead there's a kink in the tube, making a sharp turn, and! Surprisingly, there's actually a source of light from beyond the turn. It's not a warm source of light, though, but yet another cool, bioluminescent one. However, unlike all the smaller animals they've been passing, this one seems to be from a pretty large source, given how much of the tunnel at the corner it lights up. Unfortunately, there's no way to directly see what's around the corner, just yet until they get really close.

[Keeper]

Port Valdez

Henry can't speak to June but this sharp turn is a little tight for him. He gingerly moves forward, turning with the kink in the tube as he pulls himself towards the light and-
...begins kicking his legs. Henry's huggable shape seems to have finally caught up with him and gotten him stuck. Can June push him free of the passage?

[Rebonack]

[Port Valdez - Golden Jellyfish Pub]

Stephan sets the bottle down and grins.

"Great, that's exactly what I need. Thanks for the tip," he says before regarding Harry. "I'll go arrange for the scuba gear you'll need. Wait here, I'll be right back."

And then off he goes!

Some time will pass.

Then some more time will pass.

And apparently he just totally ditched Harry. Probably because he thought she would be a liability to have along on this particular trip. Having to rent all that gear just so some irradiated lady can go underwater sounded like it would be a real drain on the profitability. What a jerk.

But thankfully that probably isn't the end of Harry's adventures.

Depending on how interested she is in responding to yelling from inside the pub.

"THAT'S (FLOWERING) (ROSEPETALS)! YOU SAID IT WAS ALL YOU CAN EAT FISH AND CHIPS!" comes a very loud and likely very familiar voice from inside the pub. This is, as it turns out, a common problem for the owner of the voice.


[Ruins]

"You aren't tiny you're pretty average height for a human," Dizzy retorts.

Is she a human?

Dizzy isn't one hundred percent sure.

Humans can have dark colored skin definitely but usually it isn't black black. Kind of bluish black?

"Godzilla's this giant monster from some movies. Three hundred feet tall or so? Really big."

Enormously big.

[bc56]

Ruins
"Thanks, but humans are tiny," Sele replies matter-of-factly. For a gigantic monster masquerading as a humanoid, that's a compliment. She listens to the description of Godzilla. "That's giant," she agrees.

[Earl of Purple]

Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub

Well, that... seems like a dick move, but Harriet can't really blame him. She'd be a hindrance underwater, for sure... And that's a voice she recognises. So she'll go to Mags, although not join in the argument. If she gets too heated she'll start getting too hot and irradiate things around her, which Magdalene might be able to survive but nobody else would.

[Rebonack]

[Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub]

Harriet will find Magdalene inside, appearing much as she always does. A thin human girl in her mid-teens with slapped together armor and a set of reindeer antlers growing from her head covered in frost as by velvet. It's been some time since Harriet saw her last, but Magdalene doesn't look any older. Maybe the divine power she stole leaves her as unchanging as the Old Gods.

She's arguing with the proprietor of the pub over the semantics of what 'all you can eat' means.

"Look, kid, you've put away nearly half your body weight. I have no idea where it's even going. So you can either pay more or I'm cutting you off."

Magdalene narrows her eyes, then begins digging around in her pack until she pulls out an emerald roughly the size of a quarter and slaps it on the counter.

"...yeah that'll do it," mutters the bar keeper as he pockets the gem and shuffles away to fetch another basket of fish and chips.

That leaves Magdalene to spin a bit on her stool and spot-

"Harry!" she calls out, waving at the fellow scav just in case she wasn't noticed. "Hey get your butt over here. How are you doing? Have you trashed anything big?"


[Ruins]

Okay THAT gets a very suspicious look.

A very, very suspicious look.

"You aren't some giant monster just disguised as a human, are you?" Dizzy inquires.

I mean.

Really, though.

Would that be strange?

Dizzy has been to a cloud castle, met some pixies and a nightmare, and heard them talk about riding dragons.

How unexpected would this be, really?

[bc56]

Ruins
"Uh... no? Just a normal human (uh, half-human) adventurer. Not any sort of giant thing," Sele replies. It's probably unconvincing. Maybe if she appended "you suspect nothing" to that? No, that would be worse. "I'm very normal. This isn't even my, uh, day job." She's digging a bit of a hole with her insistence.

[Earl of Purple]

Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub

"Hi Mags. No, I can't say I have. Not since we parted ways last, anyway. Mostly I've been trying not to get lost, and failing miserably. I met a chap who was going to investigate a scuttling ship with me, but I think he scarpered to do it himself rather than pay money so I can hire... uh, scoobie gear. There's other bounties, though, including one chap so dangerous I was advised against accepting it. How're you for funds right now?" Harriet smiles at the apparently younger girl, and her literally bottomless stomach. She does tilt her head and frown when an idea comes to her, though. "Have you ever found the food you eat on your god?"

[Rebonack]

[Ruins]

Yep.

That's a pretty suspicious look right there.

Maybe Sele needs to work on her definitely normal humanoid act a little better.

Or maybe not refer to humans as tiny?

"Mhmm," Dizzy replies, making it quite clear that the story isn't being bought while also not specifically calling Sele out on it. Going to cross those arms akimbo, too, just to make it even MORE clear that it isn't being bought. "Well, if you ever wanted to talk to me about giant monsters for whatever reason I wouldn't be opposed to it."

That's very diplomatic.

Probably.


[Port Valdez- Golden Jellyfish Pub]

"Really? Too bad. I ran into some Moirai stuff the other day and the big bug at the end was a huge (flower). The way those bugs get into your head is such a (flowering) pain," Magdalene says, picking at one of her ears with her pinky as if expecting to dislodge an earwig. "But yeah! I could do with some more funds. What kind of (flower) needs taking down? Something real dangerous, right?"

That isn't a new thing at all. Magdalene has a whole thing with throwing herself headlong into danger.

Worse case scenario?

She gets killed and loses all her junk.

Big deal.

Though at the question she looks... surprised a bit?

"(Rose), I hadn't ever thought of that before? Everything down there's all covered in, like, snow and dead leaves and bones and stuff. If it showed up anywhere I don't think you would ever be able to find it."

[bc56]

Ruins
"Uh, what? Why would I, uh, do that?" Sele questions, still unconvincing. "We aren't going to encounter any giant monsters here." Not unless Neshiyahel is back, and if that happens, Sele won't hesitate to unbind. But with no clear and present threat of sufficient magnitude, she'll keep her secret.
Well, maybe not entirely. She can circumspectly warn Dizzy about it, right? "Actually, I've heard there are some giant monsters who are dangerous to be near or even look at." Dizzy already seems suspicious, so she should get the hint.

[Rebonack]

[Ruins]

"That's a pretty good question," Dizzy agrees magnanimously. "Why WOULD you do that?"

Whoops.

That might have backfired.

"Dangerous to look at, huh? Sounds like more HP Lovecraft stuff. Like oh no! You saw a giant squid monster and now you're crazy!" Dizzy says, and then does some hand waving in a manner that Dizzy assesses to be sufficiently crazy.

It sounds like Dizzy isn't too terribly concerned by this.

There's a good chance Dizzy has no idea how serious this actually is.

[bc56]

Ruins
"Worse than that," Sele says. "Like it replaces what makes you you with it. So if a monster like that doesn't want to hurt people, it has to stay hidden. Understand?"

[Gold]

[Empty Beach]

TASBot shrugs at Hoshiki's question, not actually sure how to answer. When the swordsman asks him to give the day's pay to Aaron, TASBot obliges with a "Sure thing, teach," putting his hand up to his screen and lowering it to reveal and hand to Aaron a couple of pink diamonds - the currency of TASBot's star system.

Once Aaron is given the gems, TASBot will head back with Hoshiki. On his way back, the robot can't help but think that he might want to locate a stable source of income to fund his training - or, in other words, he ought to get a job.

[Thursday Violist]

Port Valdez

Henry can't speak to June but this sharp turn is a little tight for him. He gingerly moves forward, turning with the kink in the tube as he pulls himself towards the light and-
...begins kicking his legs. Henry's huggable shape seems to have finally caught up with him and gotten him stuck. Can June push him free of the passage?

[Port Valdez] - cave

For a moment, June considers helping push Henry farther in, so they can keep on going. The cave's got to open up, after all, and Henry would be able to turn around afterwards.
But, she reminds herself, pushing someone into a place in a cave that they can't get into themselves is a bad idea. What if there isn't actually a space to turn around? Then he'd get stuck!

She has, of course, completely forgotten that he can phase through walls if necessary.

Worried that he's going to get stuck, she tries to pull him back towards her!
She plants her long tail along the wall of the cave for something to push against, as well as two of her hands, and uses her other four hands to try to pull him back.

While this happens,
Henry can see what the source of the light is.

It's actually an animal. Something with long, sharp teeth and a sleek, thin body that lets it swim fast. Its mouth glows. It's quite a bit farther down the tunnel, but as soon as it sees Henry it quickly starts swimming down the tunnel towards him.

Of course, once it gets closer, it does its best to stop. (It's not easy, since its momentum keeps on carrying it forward.) A large shark is actually much larger than it was expecting. Henry's mouth is much pointier and larger than it was expecting. Most animals in this tunnel, it can eat in just a couple bites but Henry is much larger than it is. It has no chance, but it was swimming fast enough that it can't stop quickly enough.

[Keeper]

Port Valdez - Cave

Henry does not in fact like glowing predators charging straight at him, and he opens his mouth to scream but his lungs don't have any air in them because his gills are currently being used.
If the glowing fish has the misfortune to swim directly into Henry's mouth it would be lost in the void beyond his tongue, never to be seen again.

Either way June can pull him free after a few good tugs.

[Ironsmith]

[Butterfly Bay]

"There's a place in town, where the freaks all come around~" Exstacy half-sings, half-hums to herself along with the stereo by the window as she runs her finger down the page of the open recipe book in front of her. "Tablespoon of cocoa powder, one egg, three cups flour..." She mumble-reads, fetching the ingredients and setting them up on the kitchen island and grabbing an apron from the peg.

Really, it's been surprisingly quiet recently. Sure, Ilpholin's still out there and poised to kill them, but she doesn't know where DEATHKISS actually lives, seemingly. And despite the lingering threat, things have more or less gone back to some semblance of normal. Granted, Melody only visits these days and Euphoria's out with her new girlfriend (ugh, Exstacy thinks to herself), but when they're all here, it's...

Almost like old times.

...All six months or so of them.

Exstacy shakes her head and starts whisking up the batter, letting out a little sigh. Reminiscing like that isn't helping her. She really should just be grateful for what she has now. Two lovely, available succubi friends, Jaahlyn, a nice house in a town with almost no diabolists, and plenty of opportunity to just kind of kick back and enjoy life for a bit.

After all, there's basically no danger to her here. The Devils can't get to her and neither can any of their agents. And even if they could... well, there's a good chance that's going to work out for her anyway. So what is there to worry about?

[Magtok]

Butterfly Bay - Good Writers Borrow

So what is there to worry about?

There's a knock at the door, followed by an impatient turning and twisting of the doorknob, and then the entire doorknob pops off, leaving an ugly round hole in the door, an open wound left by the unscrewed knob, which has been callously abandoned upon the floorboards, clattering loudly against the ground as if to warn of the danger ahead.

The door gently swings open, pushing the fallen doorknob up against the wall, lightly scratching the floor, and in walks none other than Katherine Exstacy's favorite person, her financier and patron, the esteemed and honorable and heroic and gracious Lord Magtok.

"Hello? The door was locked, so I let myself in," the cyborg calls out. Magtok, I don't think that's how that particular phrase is supposed to go. The idea is that you let yourself in if you're friends with the homeowner and it's a simple as turning a knob, not that it's okay to just break in and...never mind. Anyway, mismatched eyes look this way and that, taking in the house with a sort of bored indifference. It doesn't seem like the sort of place to have magical booby traps, and if there was some sort of guard dog or homicidal murder roomba, we would've seen it by now, yes? So nothing to worry about, nothing to get in the way of our purpose here. The Nexus's premier supervillain finds a cozy armchair to sit back in, folding his hands together and offering a smile when his target inevitably decide to come investigate.

...She will come find him, right? Shoot, she wouldn't do something audacious like jump out a kitchen window and run away, would she? Oh, that would be really embarrassing and aggravating if she does. It took forever to find her, almost gave up until we decided to broaden our search beyond Riverside. We'd have to leave a note at the door instead, to hope that she comes back eventually and doesn't just abandon this whole building and all of her stuff within it.

[Ironsmith]

[Butterfly Bay - Good Writers Borrow]

What in-

Exstacy ducks against the wall as someone starts fiddling around with her doorknob, hastily grabbing the kitchen phone off its hook once it becomes apparent that someone's breaking into her house.

Shitshitshitshitshit.

The succubus hastily fumbles over the buttons, punching in the shortcut for Intersection and holding the phone up to her ear. Jaahlyn's likely either too far away to help or on her way, so this is probably her best-

And then the intruder speaks.

...Oh, shit.

Exstacy slowly lowers the phone, a hard lump forming in her throat. She recognizes that voice, and going to the police in this case would be... counterproductive.

...How the hell did he find her?

Exstacy slowly returns the phone to its hook and takes a deep breath. Okay. All's not lost yet. He didn't come in with a huge laser cannon pointed at her face yet or anything. Maybe she can just... talk him down. Sure, Magtok's a reaking supervillain, one of the most infamous ones in the Nexus, but she pulled one over on him before.

Maybe she can manage it again.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Exstacy folds her wings around her, bringing back the Katherine disguise for an encore performance. He hasn't given any indication he knows who she really is yet, and she'd like to keep that in her back pocket.

Taking a moment to check her reflection and make sure she didn't mess up the hair again, Katherine stands and walks into the living room, giving Magtok a pointy-toothed smile. "Well, if it isn't my favorite philanthropist!" The bubblegum-pink succubus greets with a teeth-rottingly sweet voice. "Have you come to check up on your investment? I've been trying to call, but it keeps saying you've been disconnected."

[Magtok]

Butterfly Bay - Good Writers Borrow

"I understand. You've been busy, and Ilpholin has been...she's been active. I don't know the details, but it hasn't been pretty, has it? That's probably why you're all the way out here in Seaside, right? It's the sensible thing to do, to care for the community, but keep your home base far from all the chaos and troubles plaguing it. The first rule of first aid is to make sure you're safe before you go helping others. It doesn't do anyone any good to run to your kin's defense if they're standing in the middle of a minefield," Magtok answers with a nod.

"Katherine...Kathy? Katie? Kate?" Are they familiar enough with one another to justify shortening her name to just Kate? I guess so, since he's visiting her in her own home.

"Kate, I know what you did. You fooled me, and ran off with a considerable sum of money. I'm not mad at you, though. How could I be? You put together a decent script, found a target who had money but limited influence, attached a halfway decent cause to your con, and-" he stops for a moment, plagued by a stray concern. An eyebrow is raised at 'Katherine,' and for a moment there's all the judgment and chilling disdain that Exstacy may have expected to face when she first saw Magtok sitting in her living room chair.

"You did put at least some of that money back into the community, yes? It didn't all go towards this house? Please, Kate, tell me your little stunt wasn't completely selfish. We all love to see a roguish scoundrel with a heart of gold, but I absolutely cannot abide a heartless, amoral scumbag who's only playing at being that devious scoundrel," he explains with a heavy scowl. It sounds like he has prior experience with exactly that sort of person, or at least believes he does. An ancient grudge flaring up to the surface, dark and vengeful thoughts he'd once buried.

"Regardless, I'm not mad. Very severely disappointed if all you did was buy a house, but not mad," he clarifies, finally stopping for a moment to give her a chance to question him, try to explain herself, or just stew in her panic before he elaborates further.

[Ironsmith]

[Butterfly Bay - Good Writers Borrow]

...What?

Katherine's smile turns strained as she processes this portion of the conversation. That... can not be right. If Magtok wasn't angry with her, why did he come out to her house? What was the point?

He has to be trying to trick her somehow. Half his head is a machine; he might be trying to bait her into saying something incriminating and recording it.

A direct answer that admits to anything would be close to suicidal.

"...Fooled you?" Katherine puts a hand to her chest in a mildly offended gesture, her voice gaining something of an affected edge. "If you have some reason to believe I haven't been entirely honest with you... well, I mean, I would very much like to see it. I'm sure this is all just a big misunderstanding... that tends to come with miscommunication."

The succubus offers him a tight-lipped little smile as she continues. "For one, precisely none of the money you gave me was used to buy this house." She continues. "You can check with the offices at Talman & Short; this place isn't even in my-"

...Wait a minute.

That last part isn't even actually a lie. He knew to come here even without "Katherine Amici" ever once being involved.

"...Balls."

The succubus sighs and buries her face, nose-first, into her fingers. "...For the record, it's still not for me." She continues, the saccharine lilt of her voice completely absent. "I told you it was to help demons, and that's the gods-honest truth. And a good portion of it has gone on to DAMN, and other charities, kind of organically. You parted with a lot of money; more than the bunch of us could spend unless we switched to an all-gold diet. What I didn't spend on us, was, in fact, spent as agreed."

[Thursday Violist]

Port Valdez - Cave

Henry does not in fact like glowing predators charging straight at him, and he opens his mouth to scream but his lungs don't have any air in them because his gills are currently being used.
If the glowing fish has the misfortune to swim directly into Henry's mouth it would be lost in the void beyond his tongue, never to be seen again.

Either way June can pull him free after a few good tugs.

[Port Valdez - Cave]

The predator is truly unfortunate: it's just large enough that it can't easily turn and stop, but it's still small enough that it can't do anything against Henry.

It can't stop in time.

It swims into his mouth, and is gone forever.

Once June manages to pull him back out, she backs up to give him a little space. If he can't easily make that turn, then it's best to not try, especially in a cave. She doesn't want him to get stuck after all. She makes an OK hand gesture, asking if he's okay after getting stuck. She then points behind herself, to say that they should head back.

Although it isn't the easiest, the lava tube is still wide enough that she can turn herself around in it and head back :back until there's a large enough space for them to both be, just out of the lava tubes. She looks at him, trying to find a way to communicate 'well, what do you want to do now?' Getting stuck in a cave has got to be pretty scary, after all.

[Magtok]

[Butterfly Bay - Great Writers Steal]

Magtok nods, a tiny smile gracing his features.

"Good to hear. Seriously, put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Can you imagine how sad it would be, coming all this way, tracking you down, running a trace on-" Magtok stops, catching himself before he says anything that Katherine might find useful. She doesn't need to know how he got here, after all. If he tells her, who's to say she won't tell all of her friends, who might tell all of their own friends? You never know when you might need to find someone again.

"Putting in all the work to locate that Katherine, expecting to find some sort of Robin Hood figure, but when you finally arrive and put on a show, she's just the sort of sociopathic leech and monster that the racists talk about? An unironic, boring, evil demon without any sort of moral gray areas or redeeming qualities? I would've had to...I don't know, maybe burn the house down? Shoot you? But it wouldn't be fun. It'd just be sad, exhausting. For the good of the Nexus, to keep such a creature from becoming too powerful, rather than anything exciting like revenge. Hero work," Magtok says with a roll of his eyes, which says plenty about what he thinks of those do-gooders and their dumb quests and adventures, slaying and laying whatever stands in the way of the greatest good. He also doesn't sound particularly uncomfortable with the idea of murdering that hypothetical Katherine and burning her house down, but I'm sure that's no surprise to Exstacy. The Nexus's most beloved supervillain has to have burned down at least a couple houses in his time, right?

But Magtok, please, we're getting sidetracked. You were supposed to tell her all about your revenge, remember? Her comeuppance, the delightful little trick designed to dissuade her or anyone else from trying to manipulate you like that ever again? The thing, the big thing this has all been leading up to?

"Right, right, anyways, since we've got that sorted out, I just have one last thing and then I'll be out of your hair. I think I smell something in the kitchen, so best we speed this along so you can back to it, right?" he reaches into his voluminous sleeve, and pulls out a gun some sort of weird glass prism, with an array of miniaturized circuits and wires and miscellaneous electronic devices floating around inside, spinning about in a pocket of nothingness. He flicks at the little prism with one finger, and it springs into life, emitting a beam of light that washes over him, scanning his form and likeness, analyzing every inch of the cyborg on the couch, before layering an extremely detailed hologram over him, rendering him as an exact copy of Katherine Amici to the naked eye.

"You "stole" from me, so it's only fair that I "steal" from you, right?" Fake Katherine Amici does the finger-quotes both times, beaming with pride at her accomplishment, a single bubblegum pink finger curled against her toothy grin.

"Your likeness, your investment pitch, your eyes and your smile. Of course I had to improvise a little, since what worked on me isn't guaranteed to work on everyone else, but I was starting from a solid foundation. You have a knack for this stuff, Kate. You also left a lot of money on the table. You should've kept going, played the odds, asked a few loan sharks, banks, major financial institutions for their help. Maybe a Skyside mob family or two, if you could find the time before people started comparing notes." People with money are often people with power, influence. People with short tempers, people who can use their prodigious power and influence to track someone down if they realize they've been scammed. Katherine Amici has a great many enemies, none of which will be very sympathetic if she tells them they're after the wrong girl.

[Ironsmith]

[Butterfly Bay - Great Writers Steal]

Oh, is that all he wants? Just to borrow her scam and keep it going?

That's...

Really bad, actually.

"Are you insane?" Katherine frowns, bapping her hand to her temple to accentuate the point. "There's a reason I stopped where I did, why I retired when I did. Do you know what kind of damage you could do if you spread this thing out?"

Katherine holds up a clawed finger. "I conned one guy. One guy with more money than he knew what to do with. And the only part of it that was actually a con was getting him to donate to charity unironically under false pretenses."

"Everything I did in picking you as a mark was intended to minimize the collateral damage. I didn't want to hurt anyone, but if I had to it might as well have been you and nobody else." She lowers her hand again. "I took what I needed and split. What you're suggesting... good god, is that a different game. I'm not going to sit here and pretend to be a saint, but there's no way I'd ever take on the scale of what you're planning."

Katherine lets out a little sigh, hands on her hips. "...What's it going to take to convince you not to go through with this?" She asks, looking away. "You want your money back? It's not all there, but I can give you a solid down payment and pay off the rest with a little more time... and interest, if that makes up for it."

[Magtok]

Butterfly Bay - Great Writers Steal

The fake Katherine seems to bask in its counterpart's dismay, soaking in the fear and despair with a sadistic mirror of Katherine's own grin. Does she really not get it? Seriously, what's she doing, talking about collateral damage? Does Mag look like someone who cares about the chaos left in his wake? If some rich and powerful scumbags have lighter wallets tomorrow? She conned a supervillain. Rather than feel discouraged or concerned, he's getting a tremendous kick out of being asked if he's insane, told that the idea is too grand and deranged to be permitted. It's been far too long since someone dared to suggest he might be mad, but now, here we are, up on the stage, with Kate acting out her part with all the pathos and fear the role demands of her. He can't even remember the last time someone tried to convince him that no sane individual could do what he's planning. It's a demon saying these things, too! Imagine being too evil for a real life devil, to scare a woman with black sclerae and pointed horns on her head! Lord Magtok, officially Too Evil For Hell. Gods, this little adventure has been such a tremendous ego boost. Magtok doesn't regret a minute of it.

"I'm not a Republic serial villain, Ka-Oh no, you wouldn't get that reference, would you?" Fake Kate puts a hand to her chin before rising up from the armchair, approaching the original Ms. Amici and raising an clawed hand to her face. Not to slap, punch, or scratch at the con artist, but to slowly and gently scoot a single rogue strand of hair back into place. Or maybe it already was in place, and Magtok's goal is to deliberately nudge it out of place? I don't know; Katherine would know her own hair better than I would.

"Listen, I didn't come here to strong-arm you, Kate. I told you I wasn't mad, and that's still not a lie. I'm happier now, I am. I've come out of your little con a stronger, better person than I was going into it. I've gotten back in touch with my roots, stretched my wings, and escaped the world-weary ennui that threatened to consume me before you showed up. This visit was not for the purpose of threatening you, for blackmailing you with your own face or playing at being some brutish cartel leg-breaker. I'm not that kind of person, Katherine. I understand why you might not be inclined to believe me, but I don't get off on scaring people into doing what I want," Fake Katherine explains, her holo-disguise fading away as Magtok aims to step past her, to head towards that door he damaged on his way in, and set about using a screwdriver built into his left hand to fix it back up again. It would be rude to just leave it like that, after all.

"You can't talk me into backing down because I already did it, Kay-Kay. I conned all my money back, and then some. It's over. Game, set, and match. I won," the cyborg gleams with pride. Sorry Katherine, victory was already ensnared within his cold steel fingers before he even opened the door. If anything, this little meeting was a friendly warning, Magtok acting out of the goodness of his heart to offer a polite, sportsmanlike heads-up, to let Exstacy know she should be careful wearing the face of Katherine Amici in public from now on. You never know who might be looking for her, who might have hired people to look for her, individuals far more brusque and aggrieved than our tin man.

[Keeper]

Port Valdez - Cave

Henry is somewhat alarmed because he can't tell what just happened to that weird fish. It just kind of vanished? Weird. Sure that's something HE can do but most things can't. Luckily he's pulled back out of the hole. He has to slowly pull himself backwards out of the hole since it's just a tiny bit too tight for him to easily turn around.

Once they're back in the larger chamber he points at one of the holes to the left of the one they just came out of. It's noticeably bigger and that's good enough for him.

[Ironsmith]

[Butterfly Bay - Great Writers Steal]

It takes all the self-restraint Katherine has to not play into this situation further by blurting out "you bastard!" after Magtok finishes his gloating. Though she's certainly thinking it. Loudly.

But there are even louder thoughts in her head now. Like about how flimsy her disguise actually is, and how anybody with a DEATHKISS poster and a black-and-white picture of Katherine can probably put two and two together. She even used her middle name as an alias, like a complete moron. Her disguise might possibly have held up with one guy after her, but the combined resources of various crime families and supervillains? Not a damn chance. And they're certainly not going to just be coming after her.

Which lends itself to one more thought, louder than all the others:

He is NOT getting away with this.

As Magtok ill-advisedly turns his back, Katherine's gaze flicks around the room for something she can pick up and use as a bludgeon, but unfortunately, the decorative choices in her living room didn't leave a whole lot of options in that regard. The only thing she can really throw at him here is... well...

Herself.

Katherine takes a deep, bracing breath, and after one more moment of hesitation, pounces at the berobed villain, attempting to tackle him into the door.

[Magtok]

[Butterfly Bay - Great Writers Steal]

"Oww, what in the-"

It takes Magtok a moment to process what's going on. What is she, stupid? He won. Tackling him isn't going to change that. He can't un-commit those crimes, and if this is an attempt at murder, killing him with her bare hands like some sort of mindless animal, well...wait, does she know about the clones? People still believe he has functional cloning vats and an endless supply of spare bodies, right? Should we tell her about that, or would that only encourage her to go for the kill? Shoot, the last thing we want is to have our victory soiled by being beaten savagely to death. Begging for mercy absolutely isn't an option, but there's no guarantee that her particular species of demon can't slit our throat with her fingers, or drain our life energy just by making skin contact, so fighting her off might not be the best choice, either.

"Stop, stop. They don't know where you are yet!" he reminds her, hoping that's reason enough to let him go. Half his body is machine; does she really want to risk him doxxing her out of spite with his last breath? One final email to all of her debtors, inviting them to converge on her location and take their pound of flesh however they see fit? Better to let Mag scurry off with a scowl and a sense of accomplishment, surely.

[Ironsmith]

[Butterfly Bay - Great Writers Steal]

If Katherine had been thinking about this logically and rationally, that interjection wouldn't have accomplished much. "So what," she might have said, "you were able to find me, so could they". It wasn't even that far removed from what she had been concerned with moments prior.

But, the simple act of Magtok pleading with her, attempting to persuade her to get off of him, rather than pulling out some gizmo or gadget and splattering her across the floor, is enough to give her pause.

The succubus clambers off of him, toward the door, likely kicking him in the face at least once in the process. Thankfully, she is not, in fact, wearing stilettos like she appears to be, so the actual damage from this will be minimal, if he somehow doesn't manage to avoid it.

Katherine stands in front of the door, arms spread, staring down at him and panting heavily, already winded from the brief struggle. "You're... you're not going anywhere..." She gasps, attempting to summon some kind of authority into her voice. "Not until... until we fix this."

...Somehow. Exactly how was she supposed to do that? Even if she'd somehow managed to knock him out, what was she going to do then? Escalate fraud up to murder? Or was she just going to keep him locked up in the garage until... something? What would happen if he broke out?

Shit. Why is it she can never think these things through?