New Vindicators Academy of Europe #30: Allegory of Prudence (M&M 2E - IC)

[Michuru]

NVAE, CAFETERIA (Dennis, Martin, Otso, Tamati, Violet; NPCs: Benedikt, Derryl-731, Doug, Herta, J.R., Kas, Kelly, Kira, Larrikin, Lexus, Mickie, Newton, Nicole, Rebecca, Rose)
Robyn appeared before the headmaster. “Newty.”

“I demand to speak to the Aurelius, Puck.”

“I’m sorry, he’s not available. Can I transfer you to his voicemail?”

“This is serious.”

“I concur.”

“Someone could have gotten hurt! The students were ready to kill each other!”

“But they didn’t.”

“I won’t allow you to-“

“I needed Martin out of the hall,” Robyn explained. “His sense of duty would have made him stop him.”

“Him? Who him?”

“The Murphy boy.” Robyn grinned fiendishly. “This is going to be cathartic, Newty. Trust me.”

“You have given us no reason to trust you and several—“ Newton gestured to the scene around them. “—Not to! I have half to have you removed-“

Robyn laughed. “It’s so adorable that you think you could-“

“Do you truly believe Nicholas didn’t spend the last few centuries thinking up a dozen or so ways to harm you?”

“And you get that I am here as a favor to you, yes?”

“I simply cannot permit you to harm the students-“

“Harm‽ I am helping! Just because you lot are too short-sighted-“

“Is it truly too much to ask that you discuss these sorts of things?”

“Yes.”

Newton ignored the fey’s sarcasm. “Whatever you think you’re doing, you could have brought it to me—filled me in on—“

“Too complicated.” Robyn waved a hand dismissively. “You mortals wouldn’t be able to understand.” Robyn stopped and looked at Martin then. “But maybe you will. Lillian Murphy serves Crux. She no doubt used her position to tell them about your weakness... but how did they obtain the recording of Kas threatening the Vitesse brothers to begin with? As the administrative assistant, she wouldn’t have had access to that sort of information.”

She smirked at the Frenchman. “You understand what I’m getting at, right? I’m trying to expose the moles your enemies have in this school.

“But if you’d all just prefer I stopped...”

NVAE, FRONT QUAD (Lex; NPCs: Kirstie)
As Lex and Kirstie walked past the van and into the street, they heard the door open. Wolf stood there, greeting his guests. Kirstie kept her head down. They had only met him the one time—outside of Lux—when Lex prevented Wolf’s other friends—the Albanian mafia—from abducting Rose.

Crux and the Albanian mafia: Wolf kept strange company.

As Lex texted Martin, Kirstie’s phone began to rang. “It’s your dad,” she told him. That he didn’t contradict her with, ‘No, that’s your cell phone’ was indicative of how bad the situation was. “He’s with me. We went for a wa... Uh, no, he’s not with us. Why would...?” She trailed off as she listened to the Murphy patriarch. “We’ll start looking. Yeah, give Nate a call and see. Keep us posted.”

Hanging up, Kirstie looked to Lex. “Your brother took off. Your dad’s worried. Doug and Nicole are bouncing back from something, but your dad and Nate are going to go out looking for him.”

[EnigmaticOne]

Imago
HP: 6

"Considering the Aurelius assigned you to work with me, I think I would have understood if you just explained!" Dennis snapped. "We could have arranged a means of goading Mrs. Murphy into a reveal without endangering everyone in the process."

And he wouldn't have walked into his own gaffe, a traitorous voice reminded him.

[McGuffin]

Ursa
HP: 3
Cnd: Busy

Otso narrowed his eyes, pausing in his medical assistance when Robyn appeared and offered her view on the situation.

"Do you know who the moles are or is this all guesswork and causing chaos in the hopes of revealing the guilty parties?"

He was liking her less by the minute and had no problem showing it. Still, this was a not insignificant matter she was presenting.

[Michuru]

NVAE, CAFETERIA (Dennis, Martin, Otso, Tamati, Violet; NPCs: Benedikt, Derryl-731, Doug, Herta, J.R., Kas, Kelly, Kira, Larrikin, Lexus, Mickie, Newton, Nicole, Rebecca, Rose)
"Do you know who the moles are or is this all guesswork and causing chaos in the hopes of revealing the guilty parties?"

“Oh, I know. When you don’t sleep, can turn invisible, fly, and walk through walls? You tend to do a lot of people watching.

“I get it—you don’t trust me... but you’ll see that this is the best way for a lot of reasons. For starters, if I had simply told you about Lillian, what good would that have done? You would have confronted her, and she would have denied it, and what then? My way resulted in a confession and more to come. Just sayin’, you’ll want to have a strike team ready to mobilize once you have the location of where the boys are being kept.”

[Flynnarrel]

Martin blanched when she mentioned his name, unsure when this became about him, then her implications became clear. "Why, what did Lex do to his mother when I was gone?" The Frenchman asked alarmed.

"And, Robyn, zey could have learned about Kas's zreats from ze Vitesse brozers' AV associate. Zey weren't exactly subtle about zeir mistreatment at our 'ands. It was not necessarily a mole at zis school. But if you say you know 'oo zese moles are zen zis entire fiasco wiz ze students was not needed." Martin challenges.

[Michuru]

NVAE, CAFETERIA (Dennis, Martin, Otso, Tamati, Violet; NPCs: Benedikt, Derryl-731, Doug, Herta, J.R., Kas, Kelly, Kira, Larrikin, Lexus, Mickie, Newton, Nicole, Rebecca, Rose)
“So, your theory is that an ally of Neo-Sapiens is working with a group notorious for hating Neo-Sapiens?” Robyn cocked her head at Martin. “If you hear hoofbeats, do you presume a stampede of walruses incoming?”

[Flynnarrel]

"A man 'oo'se allies are captured or incapacitated? Needing to make a living in some manner? Zat is quite a likelihood and Occams Razor for its simplicity." Martin says.

"But true life is oftentimes stranger. Oo' have you observed is a traitor, Master Goodfellow?" Martin asks.

[EnigmaticOne]

Imago
HP: 6

"And it's not as if bigots are immune to hypocrisy." Dennis added.

[Shock]

Violet Lear
HP: 1
Condition: Fatigued

“I get it—you don’t trust me... but you’ll see that this is the best way for a lot of reasons. For starters, if I had simply told you about Lillian, what good would that have done? You would have confronted her, and she would have denied it, and what then? My way resulted in a confession and more to come. Just sayin’, you’ll want to have a strike team ready to mobilize once you have the location of where the boys are being kept.”

The last bit got Violet's attention. Her head whipped around. "What boys?"

[McGuffin]

Ursa
HP: 3
Cnd: Busy

"You drugging someone to make them confess to something isn't much better than you accusing someone and them denying it. But even taking that into account, why not just do it to the moles instead lf everybody, if that was your goal as you claimed? You just claimed being able to do easily enough. You're just motivated by your own sense of humor and thirst for amusement, not some noble calling as you pretend."

Otso glared at the magical mischief-maker. "If you want to help, then help, tell us what 'boys' you're talking about. But if you're too busy playing your games with people's lives, kindly get the $^#% out of here."

[Arkrite]

Alex "Current" Murphy
HP: 3 CND: Normal

Lex grimaced in irritation when his phone went off. He just wanted people to leave him alone.

Snapping his battered flip phone open he glanced at the message. He didn't know where he was, Kirstie had grabbed the address. He shrugged and replied "Wolf's. No."

With that he flicked the phone off and stuffed it into his pocket. He grimaced when Kirsite's phone went off and glanced again at the van. Should he destroy it? Sabotage it? Maybe, but he couldn't bring himself to care enough to do anything.

He shook his head when Kirstie mentioned Steven.

"So what? He's a big boy, let him deal with it himself," He grumbled.

Last thing he wanted to do was look for the little racist asshat. Mom's perfect little child.

He winced, slouched forward and jammed his hands into his pockets. A part of him wanted to be angry. But the emptiness swallowed it. It took to much energy and he was so tired. He just wanted to find someplace quiet and sit there. Forever.

"Where now?"

[Gilliam]

Tamati "Taheka" Stevens
HP: 1
Condition: Normal


"Robyn, what Otso is saying is that any help you can offer would be really useful" Tamati added getting the feeling he was missing a lot of maybe prior history but from seeing what happen in the cafe earlier Robyn didn't react well to being told what to do or not to do.

"Thank God Shelby never accepted Robyn's help to fix her parents problem"

[Michuru]

Howdy! This session has dragged on long enough, because I am terrible. I'm going to speed this along a bit...

By now, you might know that I'm not normally inclined to fiat or put words in your mouths. Some time ago, I messaged Arkrite to kind of explain the direction I wanted to take this session in. He wasn't really armed with the exact details, but... he knew the gist. Basically, my intention was to throw Lex into a fight that he would lose, getting him to the next stage of this story. I did so because I get how frustrating it can be to throw you all into a situation where you're not expected to win--where you might struggle against it, not realizing victory is not an outcome. Arkrite gave me some suggestions on how to resolve it. Point being, I hope he's okay with me sort of taking control of this scene like this. It's not something I like to do, and I don't intend to make a habit of it.

Also, as I was writing this, I had this song in my head, so I put it on repeat. Watch that video not be available in McGuffin or Gilliam's countries, because Youtube is a jerk like that.

NVAE, CAFETERIA (Dennis, Martin, Otso, Tamati, Violet; NPCs: Benedikt, Derryl-731, Doug, Herta, J.R., Kas, Kelly, Kira, Larrikin, Lexus, Mickie, Newton, Nicole, Rebecca, Rose)
“I get it—you don’t trust me... but you’ll see that this is the best way for a lot of reasons. For starters, if I had simply told you about Lillian, what good would that have done? You would have confronted her, and she would have denied it, and what then? My way resulted in a confession and more to come. Just sayin’, you’ll want to have a strike team ready to mobilize once you have the location of where the boys are being kept.”

The last bit got Violet's attention. Her head whipped around. "What boys?"

Robyn gave her the international sign for 'simmer down': she raised her arms--palms out--and repeatedly pushed the air between them down. "I'm getting there. I'm getting there..."

"You drugging someone to make them confess to something isn't much better than you accusing someone and them denying it," growled Otso.

"It isn't much better," Robyn confessed, "but it's still better."

"Even taking that into account, why not just do it to the moles instead of everybody, if that was your goal as you claimed? You just claimed being able to do easily enough. You're just motivated by your own sense of humor and thirst for amusement, not some noble calling as you pretend."

"True," Robyn said, "I do find this all vastly amusing... but the other mole isn't really in a position to make this happen... naturally. Lillian worked because she works for Newty. Either she saw him and all of this unraveled or she saw her husband and turned a new leaf. Either way, win-win. The other mole isn't someone any of you see regularly. Hell, I doubt any of you have even physically met them...

Otso glared at the magical mischief-maker. "If you want to help, then help, tell us what 'boys' you're talking about. But if you're too busy playing your games with people's lives, kindly get the $^#% out of here."

"Robyn," Tamati said, attempting to be the calm voice of reason here in the sea of flaring tempers, "what Otso is saying is that any help you can offer would be really useful."

"I'm not playing. I'm helping. You ever hear of killing two birds with one stone? Well, someone go get a broom because I have murdered the whole effing flock." Robyn paused and looked quizzically at Martin. "A group of birds is a flock, right? I know it's a murder of crows, but 'I murdered the whole murder' just sounds dumb." A dejected sigh escaped the fey's lips before the Frenchman could even respond. "Oh, well. The point is... this is a good thing. You'll see. The brothers need this."

Newton went from furious to worried in no time. "Brothers?" he asked. "Mario and Johnny?"

"The Tharivols are fine," Robyn said, "it's the Murphy family I'm fixing. Martin, I know you think you need to warn your little bee-eff-eff, but trust me that he needs to go into this blind. You know how stubborn he is. If he knows this was manipulated, he'll resist it instead of letting it happen."

"What did you do to Lex and Stephen?" Newton demanded.

"I put some ideas into their heads. Well, Stephen and Kirstie, actually. Again, Lex is hard-headed. He's not going to take to manipulation. The other two, though?"

VIENNA, WOLF'S STREET (Lex; NPCs: Kirstie)
Lex grimaced in irritation when his phone went off. He just wanted people to leave him alone.

Snapping his battered flip phone open he glanced at the message. He didn't know where he was, Kirstie had grabbed the address. He shrugged and replied tapped out a reply before turning his phone off and stuffing it into his pocket.

NVAE
"What did you do?" growled Newton.

Robyn shrugged. "The younger one, I divulged the location of a Crux safehouse to. Kirstie... I could have told her that, but instead I might have suggested someone else could give her that information."

Martin's phone buzzed with a text from Lex. "Wolf's," it read. "No."

"Oh, also..." Robyn pulled out a phone and handed it to Martin. "I might have stolen that from Wolf." On the screen was the last message sent: "Out of TP. Bring some. Now."

"Like I said, I needed Doug and Nicole out of the fight. They'd be too inclined to help their adopted family once this all gets rolling..."

VIENNA
"Where now?"

Before Kirstie could answer, she heard the screech of tires. The van was speeding towards them. Wolf had seen them. He must have recognized them from Lux. He must have told his friends they were Neo-Sapiens.

Kirstie reacted on instinct. She turned to Lex and flashed him a weary smile. "I love you," she said before shoving him out of the way.

Lex tumbled back to the pavement. His eyes were on her. Her eyes were on him.

The van picked up speed and steered straight into her.

NVAE
"There's going to be a family reunion of sorts going down," Robyn said. "Look, you've all seen what's going on. That family is dysfunctional to the max... but it doesn't have to be. Lillian is the infected limb. With her removed, the body can start to heal. They need to talk this out... but that doesn't mean you all don't have a role to play."

VIENNA
There was a flash of blue where the van collided with Kirstie's aura. It wasn't a force field that absorbed impact, but an energy that surrounded her, throwing anything harmful back at the source. From the pavement, Lex watched as the totality of Kirstie's powers took the van's kinetic energy and flung it right back at the vehicle.

An explosion of force simultaneous caused the front end of the van to crush like a soda can and Kirstie to go flying away. One of the men in the back of the van flew through the windshield. The driver was caught by his seat-belt and pinned by the deployment of the airbag. There was a third--there had been a third at Wolf's house--but Lex didn't care. His eyes were on Kirstie.

Scrambling to his feet, he hurried to her side. She was breathing. She had some scrapes were she'd been flung down the road, but she seemed remarkably unharmed.

Lex looked up to see another of the men stumbling out of the van's side door. He looked dazed from the crash: he was holding his head with blood hands and barely standing. Lex started walking towards him--slowly at first, and then he broke into a run. He pulled his fist back. He screamed something. The man turned and Lex punched him in the face.

NVAE
"Where are they?" Newton grabbed Robyn's shirt and shook her. "Where are Lex and Stephen, Puck!?!"

Robyn didn't seem concerned with Newton escalating to physical violence. He simply turned to the Finnish student. "Otso, you might want to go get that girlfriend of yours. Violet can get Wolf's address. Beatrice can follow the trail from there. I'd get moving before she starts to lose the scent."

VIENNA
The man crumbled to the pavement and Lex pulled back his fist as he dove atop him. One knee hit the pavement while the other was planted in the man's gut. Another blow to the jaw forced the man to paint the street crimson.

As he moved to punch him a third time his ears registered the driver fighting with the airbag. Lex punched his victim again and knocked him out cold. He rose to his feet and looked through the van to see the driver fighting to deflate the safety mechanism. He grabbed the frame of the van and raised his foot to step up into it. As he moved to climb in, someone grabbed him from behind. Lex looked down and saw a handless arm. Wolf. He turned and then felt something sting his neck. On reflex, his hand went to his neck. His fingers found the syringe.

The world was hazy then. He felt weak. He felt tired.

NVAE
"By now, Crux should have the brothers. Maybe Kirstie."

VIENNA
<"Your ankle monitor!"> the driver shouted to Wolf as he freed himself from the driver's seat.

<"I cut it off,"> Wolf said as he kicked Lex in the ribs. <"Lucky for you. The speeb would have killed you all."> He looked to Kirstie. <"We won't be able to carry them both. Help me carry this one. We'll take the car. Get him to somewhere close. If he wakes up, we're both dead.">

<"If the police-">

<"I know. I need to get out of the country now. I know a guy, but...>" He bit his bottom lip and shook his head. <"I can't find my damn cell phone."> How was he supposed to call Milinkovich now?

NVAE
"So," Robyn said, flashing them all a devious grin, "you might want to rally the troops."

ELSEWHERE
When Lex came around, his sides and back hurt. He was sitting up--leaning against corrugated walls. It was dark and he was sitting in water. His hands went to the walls. It was a holding tank that wouldn't hold up to his powers, except that...

"Good morning, sunshine," his brother side from the other side of the tank. "Who do you think they'll castrate first? Me or you?"

They were both in a foot of water. If Lex used his powers in here, he'd electrocute his little brother. There were times he thought Stephen might have deserved it, but now?

Stephen sighed. "Look... when they come for us? Do what you have to do to save yourself, okay? Don't let them use me to make you hold back."

Three hero points to Lex.

[EnigmaticOne]

Imago
HP: 6

Dennis opened his mouth, then just closed it. Puck lived up to their name, undoubtedly. "Where are they being kept?" He finally asked.

[Flynnarrel]

Martin just pursed his lips and shoot his head.

"I am particularly irked by entities wiz so much power to be godlike, so much power to be bored wiz it all, yet wiz just enough empazy zat zey can justify zeir chaotic manipulations in a cloak of 'altruism', a convenient excuse to play to zeir whims." Martin sighs. "It is anozer form of bullying, but... at least zis time, to my knowledge, no one was forced to break into song." he concedes.

Still, the similarities between Puck and the little alphabet guy, even Tallemaja with her machinations to make the world a better place, no, force being a better place down the world's throat, was... just, frankly, exhausting. They were all the same tune just with different levels of malicious mischief thrown in.

He faces Robyn, "I would like to say,.... Zank you, Robyn. Zank you very much. You could 'ave been so much worse for ze world, for zis school." Martin says, giving the capricious entity a moment to let his thanks settle in.

He looks to the room filled with neo-sapiens recently roused from sleep or concussion, some just barely learning to control their gifts. "Zank you, Robyn Goodfellow, for showing us ze dangers of too much power and an object lesson in zeir misuse. Every student 'ere will be tempted to use ze abilities to impose zeir Will upon ze world - whezer it be to take what zey want, or even in ze pursuit of doing 'good', 'noble' acts - exposing a traitor, 'ealing a family. But you, Puck, 'ave shown us all what it feels like to be collateral damage in 'aving zat imposed upon us. Zank you."

"I could launch in to why giving us ze information zen trusting us to sort out our problems - whezer zrough investigation and observation, and building a case, or zrough self-reflection and communication and zerapy - would 'ave been slower but better, but I do not zink you would learn anyzing from zis. But opefully everybody 'ere will." He looks around the room.

Then he looks back to Robyn. "So Robyn, Zank you. We will go rescue ze Murphy brozers as you suggest, no doubt wiz zeir relationship much more improved for zeir shared 'ardship and turmoil. Maybe you would share what you know of zis ozer 'mole'? And per'aps zen you can return to why ze Master Wizard, Ze Aurelius, asked you to work wiz Dennis and determine why ze school's magical protections 'ave failed, if zey were deliberately brought down, and what may need to 'appen to protect zese students from magical zreats."

"As for us, Otso, could you ask Beatrice if she would be willing to 'elp. We will start at.." Martin checks his own phone, "'Wolf's' if any of us know where zat is. Dr. Netwon, I can get you a license plate and ze descriptions of two men, suspected Crux members, zat Lex was last wiz, along wiz ze numbers from Wolf's phone to get to ze auzorities to report a kidnapping. I'll get you ze information as we'll take ze actual phone wiz us as it might prove useful."

"Zis sound good?"