2012-11-24 Raining Bacon

Night. The time when those who walk the streets ply their trade, with soft smiles that hide all else. Shoppers triumphantly carrying home their purchases. People vanishing into their homes, like pests scattering when the light switch comes on. Though, a scream pierces the quiet - and it's not a knife wielding pigeon, either. Whatever it is, the sound of thundering hooves is pounding the street. Is it some glorious hellhorse? Some magnficent infernal goat?
Of all the times - and she had just been picking up a few things when *it* showed up, rushing through a crowd of shoppers unnoticed. Rain knew Black Fridays were crazy, but this just kicked it up a notch. It's a cold New York night, where your breath clouds in the air and there's just enough chill to bite through a coat, but not enough for ice or snow. Not yet. What was it though? Rain tilts her hat back, trying to peer over. She's going on foot, though, and turning a corner just in time to see the world's biggest bacon bite roar and flip over an SUV. It's a demonic boar - not worthy of many stories in a modern era, but in the era of hunting and to hunters, boars are known for being terrifying. No wonder a demon might employ one. But Rain is staring in abject horror as it now headbutts the SUV. Mercifully, the sole inhabitant is scrambling and staring. Does his insurance cover demons?
 
Loren had been enjoying the day. The chaos, the greed, the anxiety... fascinating. He looks every inch the gentleman today, leaning slightly more toward the Victorian than the modern, as is appropriate nearing Christmas. He has been making good time down the street, a cup of coffee--black--in one hand and a walking stick in the other. It was slightly slick with fog early this morning when he left the house.
Running into Rain isn't entirely planned but once he knows where she is, he's been headed her way. And, then, this other disturbance. It'll be a good chance to see how his little apprentice does in a bind. In the blink of an eye he's standing across the street from her, doing nothing to gain her attention. The coffee is gone. Hands clasped on the raven's head knob of his walking stick, he watches the drama unfold.
 
This is Sara's life now. She'd been headed out for a bite to eat after finishing her duty shift with the department when she started feeling the Witchblade tugging on the corner of her mind. She still doesn't know a lot about the thing, but she's started to work some of it out. As usual, she tried to ignore the pull, but as the artifact became more insistant, she'd finally given in. Thus her arrival shortly after the ruckus starts, on the back of a slick blue/white/black sportbike. She catches sight of the demon boar and clicks her tongue. "...right," she grumps, and peels off the road to park her bike in an alley.
"Why don't you ever get interested in, I don't know, newborn puppies or something?" she grouses, shrugging out of her jacket and leaving it folded over the bike's seat before she scoots back out onto the street. "I don't suppose there's much chance of talking this... thing down," she mutters, not really receiving or expecting a response from the companion strapped to her wrist as a glittering jewelled bracelet. Which is growing restless, much to her private dismay. This is just not going to end well, she can already tell.
Maybe the Witchblade just really wants a BLT. Because there's a huge boar now headbutting an SUV and trying to gore it. People of the mortal persuasion have almost all flocked and scattered. Some flail, a few scream and a couple of derps have their phones open, snapping away. Part of a muffler konking one upside the shoulder scatters those soon enough, though. The boar is just gorein' it up, enraged and enjoying its freedom to just do boar things. Rain herself isn't such a big fan, but low prices are something she's invariably drawn to. Mercifully, the boar isn't HUGE, but it is a little bigger than a full grown standard issue European Boar. And it's packed with demonic rage. It snorts gouts of smoke.
"Ah, crap." Rain does not look happy. But it's not so much fear as figuring out how to deal with this without outing herself. Oh yeah. She quickly ties a bandana around her face, shucking her purchases for now. Her hands rest on the twin handles of the pistols tucked away neatly in her coat. For now, she concentrates a moment, preparing a spell. It takes time to deploy magic though - and um, wait. Is there a lady on a - is someone still over there? Either way, magic takes a moment, especially Rain's willworking. But she's moving carefully instead of using her face as a battering ram.
 
Loren is conspicuous only because of his bemused calm. Well, perhaps because of the elegant clothing but it's a little dark to make that out. It's a rather nice boar, and he does have a very large menagerie--as anyone who's anyone should. 
When one of the aforementioned derps lunges his way in panic, Loren neatly prods him in the shoulder with the walking stick, spinning him aside and to the ground. The S-phone the guy was brandishing spins to a stop at Loren's feet. He kicks it aside with one polished shoe and steps down into the street, carefully avoiding the gutter.
 
Sara hits the streets, and does her job. She pulls a whistle she's been carrying since her beat cop days, and waves her badge from her belt with her other hand while she blows it. "NYPD, clear the street!" She grabs a couple of panicked people and shoves them in the right direction, and picks another, less-panicked guy to shove in another direction. "Tell those people to get off the street," she tells him with a shove, and moves along, re-clipping her badge and pulling her sidearm instead. 
A tendril loops free of her wrist and taps the gun in an irritated fashion. "Look, let's try it first, alright? Can we do that? It's too cold to loose my shirt tonight," she mutters, ducking around one of the parked cars while she tries to make it to the angry demon-boar without catching a car in the face. Of course... she catches up with Loren first, and eyes him oddly. "I suppose I'd be wasting my time suggesting you get off the street somewhere safe," she muses. She hasn't been in Metacrimes long and doesn't know the man, but... there are ways people act when they have little reason to be worried. Loren's got it in spades.
It would be a pretty good pet, if one didn't mind demonic boars. Could be handy to sic on someone or just show off that you are a bad enough dude to have a boar pet. But the SUV isn't gonna keep it busy long. In a spectacular burst of smoke and metal and SUV bits, it gives away. The beast bellows in triumph. Take /that/! It's hard to say what got it riled up so - be it a manifestation of wrath or that someone tried to stop it or - what happened. It's on a rampage though, and there's no sense wasting a good rumpus. What should his next target be? A scooter gets kicked aside. It's closing in on Sara and Loren, though not intentionally. It would almost be gleeful, if it weren't horribly dangerous.
The derp awks as he's prodded, too panicked and startled to notice his S-phone got kicked into the gutter. He glances around and scampers if he's not stopped. He does glare at the man with the stick, but there's something that keeps him from doing so. No phone is worth being smashed for. He wants /away/. There is a giant baconator coming towards them.
Rain herself is quietly casting a spell, though she's watching the boar's path and keeping up with it on foot as best as she can. Lightning takes time to draw down. Or she's holding fire since - there are things near. Still, she seems pretty good at keeping her head down and just in range of zapping. Though, boars are hardly the most intellectual of all monsters. Wait - is that -
 
Loren is well-versed in the ways of magic and all such things. He recognizes what's accompanying Sara--well, *who* might be more accurate--immediately. 
"Don't waste your time on me, young lady," he says, pointing his cane at the oncoming boar. "I'm no help here. I believe you should focus on that." A complete fabrication, of course. But while Loren Olsen can even risk being outed as a mage or warrior of sorts, he certainly can't lay claim to power anywhere approaching that of the Witchblade. "Do take care."
Of far more interest to Loren than the boar, Sara, or the Witchblade is his little apprentice. He seems to be staring off into space when, in fact, he's watching her magic work. Yes, he can see where she needs practice. This is most edifying.
 
Errr. "Right," Sara replies. Thought so. She eyes the Witchblade-- and Loren-- when the artifact shifts around on her wrist and produces another of the tendrils, the blade raised like some sort of snake thinking about whether it should strike before it whips back to her wrist in what can only be described as an irritable fashion. "O-kay..." that's new.
She pushes it out of her mind and moves on, racking a round into the chamber of her Sig. Sara's not really eager to shoot the boar... until of course a citizen manages to get themselves in its way. At that point, she puts two of the .357 rounds into it. It'd probably stand a chance of dropping a normal Boar, but... this one's big. And mad. And... demony.
Rain's magic is just slow. It requires deployment, concentration and - she's keeping track of the pig, keeping up. She says nothing if she even notices Loren. Rain is excellent at keeping secrets. Funny how that works. As for the mortals, many of them are scattered and gone. The ones who poke out to see duck as shrapnel is scattered like sand in the wind. Cars are being dented, windows shattered and motorcycles? FLIPPED LIKE SO MANY TABLES. It would almost be sort of funny in a black humor way, all property damage aside, if the likelihood of injury weren't approaching one. And being shot, like death and many other things, tends to piss boars off. There's a reason rifles and shotguns tend to be the words of the day when dealing with boars.
On being shot, the creature roars and spins over. It sort of kneels a moment, but that? That just cheesed it off right good. Pigs are durable critters and this one is no exception. It hurts, but it's a good deal sturdier than a normal boar. Rain's magic goes off as well, though the blast of electricity seems to only startle the critter for a moment. Maybe long enough to get a whip going or something? In the distance, there's only a soft: "Oh, FRUITS." Sigh.
 
Really. Children. Loren adds his own bolt of electricity on the heels of Rain's, pure magic converted into something the physical world understands and disguised to match what she just brought down. These young people do need to learn to let loose properly. 
"A more substantial weapon might be appropriate," he murmurs, watching Sara for a moment before turning his attention back to Rain. He's just making sure the boar doesn't take a run at what's his. It'd be a bit conspicuous if it were suddenly roasted with an apple in its mouth in the middle of the street.
 
As if it itself is offended by Loren's attitude in regards to its current person-- Sara-- the Witchblade rouses. Sara isn't actually all that happy about it. "I can't say I'm thrilled about the side-effects-- Nonono, do NOT do this to me tonight," she insists, but not only does it not listen... it doesn't do its usual trick of shredding her clothes. Yet, at least. Tendrils whip out of the bracelet, and wrap around her arm... but they stop just below her elbow, providing a sort of armored, bladed gauntlet. More importantly, the Witchblade whips up around her fingers and gun, settling into sort of a filigree around the weapon's barrel and a rather strange gothic mini-bayonet thing. The next two shots... well. It's not every day you see a service sidearm fire pure hellfire at a demonic boar thing. Sara, honestly, is just glad her shirt's still intact.
Ohright. She was at least hiding, so the blast was disguised. But Rain is keeping out of the way. Maybe she's trying to work out a plan or there's a new presence that's startled her. She blinks as pure hellfire is blasted at the demonic boar. The boar is pretty surprised, too. Because he's ... got hellfire on him. He's been zapped, shot and blasted. He's getting wobbly on his feet now. If one intends to catch or barbeque him, it would be a good time to choose because he's rearing up to charge. He bellows angrily, though. Who stomped his rumpus run, darnit!?
Rain is making her way over towards the duo, unintentionally mind, but doing so. Bystanders are practically nonexistent, so disguises are spared.
 
"One hates to be wasteful," Loren murmurs. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the boar goes up in a pillar of hellfire and brimstone, as though its skin were finally breached enough to let Hell through. It's impressive, technically and visibly, a flawless blend of spellcraft and illusion.
In the aftermath, as sulphurous sparks rain down on the street, something small and shiny tumbles to a halt against the toe of Loren's shoe. He bends and, without comment, picks up whatever it is and pockets it. His fingers sting from the heat of the freshly minted miniature carving of a demonic boar. When he pulls it out again, its angry little ruby eyes will be flashing with the promise of revenge. 
In the meantime, he leans a little on his walking stick and offers Rain and Sara a completely beatific, innocent smile.
 
Sara still has the reactions of someone new to... all this. She throws her arms up to sheild herself from what is, essentially, a controlled explosion, and she manages to miss Loren picking up the miniature. And also the way a pair of whip-like blades slam into the pavement where it had been, about a half-second late to succeed in either destroying it or take Loren's fingers off. The appendages pull up, as if trying to decide if the kill is worth tangling with Loren tonight, and by the time Sara lowers her arms, the Witchblade has apparently decided against it. Maybe, maybe if its host was ready for an encounter like that it would have decided different. But she's still far too new at this to work with it on the necessary level, so it withdraws back to her arm, releasing its hold on her gun so she can holster it.
Not entirely aware of the byplay that just occured, Sara asks the obvious question. "What was that? Aside from maybe a *really* poorly-contrived ad for Bacon Bits."
Rain makes it just in time to - duck the sulphurous sparks and what have you. She is startled by it. The Master can pull off some serious juju. Her violet eyes are wide as dinnerplates. She recovers after a moment, glad the boar at least - is um, stopped. And there's a lady with a whipblade hand? Sara gets a quizzical look. She tilts her head, seeming uncertain. "I ..." She pauses at the question. "Oh. Uhm. Well." She looks like she has a pretty good idea. "It's -" She glances to Loren, uncertain. She seems pretty familiar with all of this, though she still jumps when fires break out. There's definitely relief as a tangle doesn't break out. She blinks again. She looks awkward. "No bacon bits involved, that's for sure," She smiles faintly. She may not be aware of what just happened with the boar, but for all she knows, it got zapped by Loren and that's good enough(TM). Deep breath. "I worked on catching it, but I should hold back a bit less, I guess." She frowns. She has a lot of hesitance. "Neither of you are hurt?"
 
"Just fine, my dear. I believe the young lady--officer? detective?--is unharmed. I would be deeply surprised if it were otherwise," Loren says warmly. "She seems exceptionally competent. What about you?" Loren holds out a refined, manicured hand, not quite touching Rain's chin, as he looks her over. "Hardly a fitting end to a day of shopping, is it?"
 
"Either. Both," Sara answers, and taptaps on the... strangely Giger-esque, jewelled metal gauntlet covering her right arm. "You can stop now." A pause. "Fine, whatever." Just... let the thing do what it likes for now, Sara. It didn't shred your clothes off this time, so small victories. Anyway. "Detective Sara Pezzini, NYPD Metacrimes," she introduces herself, gesturing at the badge clipped to the front of her belt. "I suppose 'some sort of demonic boar' works as well on a report as anything. I'm not convinced anyone's reading them anyway," she decides. "Thanks for your help, both of you."
Rain nods and smiles faintly. She seems relieved. She doesn't move away as Loren's hand moves closer. She doesn't seem quite sure how to react for a moment. "That's good. I held back when I saw folks near," Sigh. She rubs the back of her head. She blinks as Sara talks to her ... arm? Headtilt. "Pleased to meet you. You must be the Sara he meant. I go by Rain." And she is honest. It's not her birth name, but few know that one. And for a darned good reason. 
"Yes, strictly speaking, it is one of the lower demonic creatures. It doesn't really warrant a particular name," She explains. "Probably a pet turned loose," She offers. "I wouldn't suggest one unless you're very strong magically or have a death wish," She shrugs. "In which case, I feel obligated to offer a helpline," She furrows her brows. "Either way, that sounds about right." She smiles faintly. "And no problem. I wish I could've done a bit more," Sigh. She looks to Loren and shakes her head. "I don't know about this Black Friday business, honestly. People are as bad as that boar when things go on sales. They forget themselves." It troubles her more than anything else. "I'm glad I went out though," She admits. Now that she managed to help deal with the boar. "It's a pleasure to see you both, then." BLTs from Hell and all.
 
"Ah!" Sara perks up a bit after momentary confusion. She's not the sort of lady that gets a lot of 'heard about you from some guy' going on. "Right, Sam's report. The kitten rescue. I was hoping I'd get to talk to you." She runs... okay, she *almost* runs her hand through her hair, but the last time she did that while wearing the Witchblade up her arm, she managed to get tangled. "Honestly, though, it was just that I didn't know much about what you ran across out there. I... kind of got thrust into this, and the department really doesn't have files on these sorts of things." She says it like she's thinking maybe they *should*.
 
"The NYPD has become so progressive of late. Well, New York always was cosmopolitan. Loren Olsen." He offers Sara his card, then a handshake. The card--elegant and simple--says that he's a Gem Merchant and Gemologist, with a residence in a very exclusive neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. The place apparently has a name, even: Gosforth Cross. 
"Pleased to meet you, Detective Pezzini. It's a pity you've not got better resources. I don't know how much help I can be here, but one does run across unusual bits and pieces in my profession. I have a few books that might interest you. I'm not a complete stranger to some of these concepts. I'm always happy to help, am I not, Rain?" Loren seems warm, competent, and forthright. His calm nature and good humour are somewhat infectuous, even.
Rain tilts her head, looking sympathetic. "The library's often a good start. People've forgotten so many stories and myths... a lot of it is hogwash, but there's some truth to a good deal of it," She notes quietly. "Still, couldn't hurt," She offers. "And yeah, I'm kind of surprised," She admits. "Is it a new department?" Rain asks quietly. She looks between the two. She is listening, for her part. She smiles faintly. "It's true," She offers in reply to Loren. Though, she doesn't really elaborate on it. She goes with it. Because really, so far she hasn't been smote and that's a Good Deal(TM). "I um, tend to keep to more free lance jobs. I'm out and about a good deal when not studying," She remarks. "So I tend to keep an eye on things." She pauses. She's chatty for a moment. But then, the Regular Witch goes quiet.
 
Sara trades Loren business cards. Hers is.. well, it's a police detective card. They all look the same except for the details. She takes the hand, which apparently convinces the Witchblade to finally withdraw back to bracelet-form. At least it go to throw flaming stuff at something tonight. It's almost content. "I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Olsen. Thank you. It's always nice to meet citizens willing to help out."
She gives Rain a nod, with an odd expression. "One of the bright points to come of that registration nonesense. We've got enough going on in this town, I guess it only makes sense to try and lure some of our powered denizens out of the vigilante racket. We'll see how well the idea's working out in a year or so, I suppose. Slow start so far, but turns out we had a few members of the department sort of moonlighting, and that's a decent place to start."
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