Avenging the Dead

Avenging the Dead
Date of Scene:	20 June 2014
Location:	Prohibition Chicago
Synopsis:	Attempting to avenge the loss of one of his Untouchables, and in retaliation for the violence of the Capone Mafia, Eliot Ness will be making his first truly decisive move against the Chicago Outfit. On the border of Minnesota and Canada, Ness will lead a group of people to attempt to intercept a smuggling convoy led by Walter Payne.
Cast of Characters:	2, Vruasa Telash, 131, 140, Fiora O'Brien, 206, 264

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Eliot Ness (264) has posed:
It's early evening on the border between the United States and its Northern Neighbor, Canada. The balmy summer weather has begun to settle in, leaving the sunset border at a comfortable temperature. This particular area of Minnesota has a small bridge that heads across the border with no particular guards or border patrol.

Ness himself is in a cabin that is off a dirt path and on a hill about 5 minutes away. It's also a couple hundred yards away from that crossing. Enough to see it, but not enough that people pay it much mind.

There are a few horses tied up on the backside of the cabin, away from the road. The detective himself is fiddling with some handheld game system that Kiyoko left at the office the other day.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
Harry Dresden is actually pretty happy to be here, out of Chicago for a day. Even if the kettle's boiling back home, he's got a day to breathe... and also help out a hero. Thus, the Wizard is quietly sitting near the rather cosy open window, idly blowing away misquitoes that happen to flit into the cabin with his flyswatter. The steel mesh flyswatter. Probably best not to ask why he has that.
Another look at the border bridge, and Harry murmurs. "We're sure this is the place?"

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
Ryuko showed up, too. I mean, taking it to a mob boss? It sounded like a fun little job. A nice distraction from the usual goings on in Honnouji, so here she is. Transformed, too, but with that dingy cloak over her, covering her up some and hiding Senketsu's transformed state beneath. She has her scissor blade in hand, as well, and no one. No one said anything about /waiting/.

She's just off in a corner, twirling her weapon a bit, grumbling.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura's always happy to help Ness or Kiyoko out. Gangsters, it sounds simple enough too. Hopefully she's not leaving this job full of bullet holes. That's getting old kind of fast. She's been slacking, or maybe she's just getting slower.

The Puella Magi shows up in the typical casual style she's rocked lately, the semi-casual look of just having some formal black pants on but only a dress shirt without the tie or coat to go over. It doesn't really fit for the era at all because she's not masculine enough to pull the crossdressing act like Kiyoko, but it's better than showing up dressed like a magical girl.

As she appears, without much announcement, she peers over Ness' shoulder. "Has Kiyoko been introducing you to video games?"

Kiyoko Saito (131) has posed:
"THIS TOTALLY ISN'T MY FAULT!" Kiyoko protests at what Homura says. She's just arriving, huffing indignantly and blushing in a way that says, yes, that is her game system. So it totally is her fault. Probably. The worst part is that Kiyoko isn't that big a gamer, so most of the ones she plays are like Tetris and such. Simple and addictive, and don't require reading Japanese.

She's dressed up in... in... a dress? Yes, a frilly dress like a good girl of the period, her hair tucked up into pigtails and nothing unusual at all here. Except for whatever she's hidden under the skirts of the dress.

Eliot Ness (264) has posed:
"I was only tinkering with it while we waited for the smugglers to come across the border. The future holds so many strange things," He muses to himself, looking up at Homura with hazel eyes, "It is very odd to imagine what will change before I live out my life."

He shuts off the game and sets it down, "They do their smuggling operations at Sundown to be able to make it back to Chicago by morning." He explains to the group, dusting himself off and looking at Kiyoko, "You look pretty today. Will you be able to fight in that?" He inquires.

Picking up a pair of binoculars, he looks out the window, "This should be simple. It'll be a truck of whiskey, escorted by Walter Payne and some of the Mafia guards. Might be a rough fight, but if we can take Payne, he'll have the ledger with him. That'll, I hope, let us figure out where to find the corrupt areas of Chicago. Any questions?"

He looks around the room before his eyes stop on Ryuko, "You're new. I'm Ness."

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
Ryuko stands, picking up her shrunken-down scissor, twirling it around her finger, as she nods. "Yeah. Ryuko's the name." She shrugs, "Heard you might need help, and all. And fightin' a bunch of mobsters and stuff? Sounded pretty cool!" She stretches, and glances out the window, "Not much longer then, yeah? Sun's almost down."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
Harry grumbles a bit, sitting forward on the chair and looking out another window. "I'm assuming they haven't been kitting themselves out with anything from outside of Chicago? That would make this a little more difficult, to be honest. I mean, if it's just them, I'm fairly certain this crowd can take Payne without him getting whacked in the process."
he hair on the back of Harry's neck starts to prickle, just like it always does at dusk. Time to start bumping in the night, for once.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Things can change quickly even in the present. It's best not to worry about it and focus on the changes you can bring yourself," Homura says, trying to fish for some river analogy about time and moving quickly. She can't find a good one.

God damnit, Kenshin.

"Unrelated to that, we're talking about Kiyoko here. The dress is probably full of explosives." Homura glances towards Kiyoko. "It is, isn't it?"

The plan is explained! Homura simply nods.
"Seems simple enough. Should we be expecting any nasty surprised?"

Kiyoko Saito (131) has posed:
Kiyoko curtsies lightly, "Ah, thank you, Mister Ness! Don't worry about me!" She smiles, lifting the dress up higher to briefly show her thighs... which have a number of throwing knives and pouches strapped to them.

Then she drops the skirts and nods, "Oh, we should definitely expect something awful! When have things ever gone according to plan? They're like... well, they know we're here now, probably. They may have hired, I dunno, Ip Man or something to take care of us."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"A truck of whiskey, huh?" A female voice asks eagerly.

Said voice is attached to the Witch of Void, Fiora O'Brien, who is dressed up like a Period Dame, or... well, the 17 year old equivalant. Long skirts, and a mass of ginger hair that she doesn't really try to tame. Whatever. It's Chicago. She blends in, sorta.

"Because if we're knocking over the mafia and /also/ high quality liquor, I am so DOUBLE in. I need some fresh stuff for... my own purposes." She offers, before offering half a sandwich to Eliot. It's a shrimp po'boy. And the fryer grease is still hot. "Sorry, had to nab a late lunch."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
The form of VRUASA TELASH shimmers abruptly into existence. He's been here for a while, cloaked but present. He raises a hand, apparently having some need to ask questions. Odd. Usually he just DOES things, particularly when it comes to the jerks they have to deal with around here.

"Anything in particular you want me to NOT do? I've been pretending to be religious figures on and off to scare them into submission, but I don't know how many times that will work before they realize that it's bullshit. Speaking of, you heard anything about that?" He asks, lowering his hand as he does.

Actually, come to think of it, the Knight isn't entirely certain it was wise to clue Eliot in on what he was doing. Push comes to shove though, he suspects that Eliot will just assume he'll get his eventually, if it's really a problem.

Vruasa issues an exaggerated sigh, in reaction to Fiora's INTERESTS in this particular adventure. He asks her, "Does that mean I should not, in fact, punch the vehicle to get it to stop?"

Eliot Ness (264) has posed:
"Oh that was you? I was wondering why I had suddenly heard that God himself was stepping in to smite and burn my enemies," Ness states blandly, looking at the Troll with an even stare that doesn't betray whether he approves or disproves of the action, while still informing the troll that such things were existing. He also politely declines the sandwich offered to him, "No thanks. 's impolite to take a lady's food, young miss. You need that for growin'."

"I haven't seen any new weapons, but you never know what they might have in stock. So be careful. I mostly expect there to be a LOT of them," He replies to Harry and Homura, but adding on to Ryuko, "Nice to meet you. I won't turn down the help, and there'll almost certainly be a fight when they see us comin'."

He rubs his hands together and then starts to pace. Shortly after, the sound of distant motors can be heard. Over the bridge rolls a convoy or three or four trucks. Ness waits till they get about a mile down the road before saying, "Let's ambush them on the road from behind so they can't cross the border back to hide with the Canucks."

He's already heading out to get on a horse. Other people can choose to travel how they like, and will be responded to based on actions.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
Horse? Well, that's all well and good. But Ryuko is quick enough on foot and can leap some distance on her own, with Senketsu's help. So she ops to attack the convoy from the side. When it comes to her target, the girl uses her head. She makes for one of the trucks in the middle, so any behind are stuck as the others attack from their rear, and any truck ahead of it can't back up, either.
She moves swiftly, tossing off the cloak she's wearing in the process, and brandishing her scissor blade, which unfolds to full size. She lunges in, looking to land on the hood of one of the vehicles, and stab her sword down into the engine block. Against whatever her blade is made of, the hood doesn't put up a fight. It even jams deep into the engine without so much as a scratch, and might very well just put the truck out of comission completely, if she's lucky.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
Let's get one this straight here. Dresden's not a horse person. Like, nega-horse. The last one he tried to ride bit him and then threw him off. That's quite alright though, because he's got people here ho can get to that truck quickly... and more over, give him room to work. People are already attacking all parts of the convoy, it would seem. But Ness specifically requested that the convoy not be allowed to make it back across the border into Canuckistan.
And so, while people busy themselves with the trucks, Harry Dresden trots over towards the bridge, limbering out his right hand and the force rings he's wearing. Let the kids have their fun with the mafia, as he points his fist down at the road back to the bridge, and shouts. "FOZARE!" He's aming to dig a furrow into theroad to turn it into an old fashioned Truck Trap ditch.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
"We don't grow. And she's the perfect size as she is." Vruasa asides to Eliot, so quickly that it's absolutely impossible he hasn't had to say the exact same thing dozens of times over. He casts a glance towards the sandwich that Fiora was offering up, but apparently decides that he doesn't want to ask to share. But he does end up lingering near the Witch afterwards, wearing an expression of fangy amusement that says a lot about where he intends to go with this plan. Ohhh, there's going to be plenty of chaos here tonight. Just you wait and see.

He casts a sharp look towards Fiora as he flickers back out of sight. This time around, Vruasa only allows Fiora to perceive his location through a superimposed illusion only visible to her. It has a big arrow pointing at him, outlining him in his signature cerulean. He flies out under his own power, his coat rendering him invisible to nearly everybody. Then, once he positions himself along the road behind the oncoming vehicles...

The Knight of Time makes a sound. It is not a sound that is audible to anybody who is in on this plan, but to the gangsters in specific, the illusion of a great trumpet being blown can be heard all about. Just like that, Vruasa starts whipping spears out of his sylladex and HURLING them into the road and surroundings that would lead the bootleggers back into Canada.

The Crystalline spears are made out of solidified hellfire. They are as ruinously explosive as it gets. Though not aimed at the trucks themselves, they are spread out in a line sweeping across the road horizontally and then off to each side, lining up approximately with the ditch that Harry Dresden is trying to establish on his own.

Alone, either of their tricks would probably make serious problems for just about any kind of ground bound vehicle. Explosively combined in this way, however... Vruasa figures that the resulting road hazard would bring down even a monster truck.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"Hopefully numbers is all they do have then," Homura says, hoping that Eliot's right. On the other hand, Eliot's got a crazy super inventor working for him, when is it revealed that Capone has, like... Einstein working on giving him SECRET NUCLEAR POWERS or something like that? Oh god please don't be true it's just a joke.

Talk of outfits and such goes way over the Puella's head, as she pays no particular mind to what people are wearing. Not even Ryuko, because frankly, she's a magical girl, she has absolutely no room to talk.

And then it is go time, and Homura... does nothing.

Or rather, she disappears, and then reappears to idle by Vruasa, a set of small pink wings semi-transparent behind her back. She's just hovering in place, honest.

"Don't worry too much about damage, I'll get the book if it gets hairy. It seems like the most useful and least disruptive thing I can do here that won't risk making things worse."

Well, that, or just shoot mens.
But blowing the truck up, she'd rather avoid doing so personally.

Kiyoko Saito (131) has posed:
Unlike the others who are doing all this cool stuff, Kiyoko is just... heading for the road and standing around beside it. She isn't armed, she's kind of just standing around... and muttering to something, because Transcendent Star's ignition key keeps talking.

'IT SUGGESTS MASTER USE HER OWN VEHICLE.'

"I'm not going to block the road with a warstrider. I didn't bring it! Who do I look like, Creed?"

While arguing, though, she is explicitly watching for unusual developments, rather than taking action herself. She's the wild card here, today. If she isn't needed... good. If she is, she's ready.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
Fiora is about to offer Vruasa delicious Po'boy when he disappears. That's okay. She smiles at his automated response, though, punching him on the arm lightly. Then she just kind of munches on her sandwich while walking totally normally down the road, following Kiyoko. He said not to blow up everything!

"Why are your keys yelling at you?" She wonders offhandedly, around a mouthful of fried shrimp and bread.

Eliot Ness (264) has posed:
Ness is not a superpowered person or capable of magic, so while everyone else is charging the distance towards the road and throwing spells, the detective is calmly getting on a horse to chase after the trucks, because that was still A Thing in 1929. He draws his pistol from his side and then just starts riding towards the trucks.

Meanwhile, one of the middle trucks in the convoy of four finds a blade dug deep into its engine block. The machine sputters and dies, drifting on its own momentrum as the driver steers it off the ground to come to a halt in a field. Unfortunately for Ryuko, though, gangsters start pouring out of the back of it. They're opening fire on the young teenager with shotguns and pistols.

The bridge buckles and shakes at the force of Harry's magiyxcks and a massive ditch appears in the road. The front truck slams into it, lifting up off the ground and then slamming back down onto it from the momentum. The driver is unconscious at the wheel and men with guns are slowly stumbling out. None of them are firing on Harry yet, but they look to be recovering.

Vruasa's rain of hellfire pelts along the ground. At seeing this, the other two trucks skid and turn, trying to weave out of the way. One of them drags to a braking stop and stays upright. The other truck turned too hard and went tumbling along the road, spilling out crates of canadian whiskey. Many of these crates slam into the ground, breaking a great number (but not all of their contents). Other crates stay in the van with an undetermined condition.

Homura can pick out how to help as she wants, stopping guys who are pouring out of the truck that vruasa brought to a stop, or the guys that are getting ready to fire on Harry. From her aerial position with firearms, there's a good amount of targets for her.

Kiyoko and Fiora, by virtue of hanging back from the action, spot an oddity. A single man, in a suit, is fleeing across a field towards a nearby treeline.

Kiyoko Saito (131) has posed:
"They're my Warstrider keys," Kiyoko explains. "They want to be piloted, but this is a bad place to bring a Warstrider. Sorta conspicuous, you know?" She shrugs, stuffing the key back under her dress. "Hey, look, there's a guy. Let's go check him out."

Funny enough, despite all her extra-worldly powerups, Kiyoko doesn't have anything to give her super speed and she can't bring any of her vehicles! So that leaves her to do the... ninja run! Swoosh! She's going to dash toward the treeline for intercept, if she can!

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
Well that was impressive. Harry whistles a bit at his handywork, even as dudes start to pour out of the trucks carrying guns and shit. Right.
Trying to idly ignore the rather hefty sensation of the Godlings ONCE AGAIN BEING HERE, he shuffles out his staff, plants the end into the ground, and bellows out at the crooks. "THIS IS THE POLICE, WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED! PUT DOWN THE GODDAMN GUNS OR WE WILL REMOVE THEM FOR YOU."
Man, no wonder Murph loves doing this, this is fun. He lifts up his blasting rod, points at at the nearest truck and grins. Well, he lowers the aim, again underneath the chassis of the vehicle. A breath, and he murmurs. "FUEGO." A tastefully pint-sized ball of fire lashes out at the trucks tires, hopefully popping them in a intimidating fashion.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"Oh. Huh! Neat. Kind of makes me wish I had talking heys." Fiora replies, trusting in the other people to Handle Things.

But then there is a SHADY DUDE running off! And Kiyoko bolting after him. So, Fiora jogs off after the faster Magical Girl, not keeping pace and instead just sort of bringing up the rear. She was okay with that.

It's not like the guy could get AWAY, but it was only sporting!

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
Small arms fire hurts, but it's not enough to get through the protection Senketsu affords Ryuko, at the moment. They might have had better luck with some rifles, or something with a higher penetrating potential, but shotguns and handguns just aren't gonna do it. Ryuko leaves her scissor where it is. She's in brawler mode, now, and those thugs are gonna be sorry.

She rushes the lot of them, slugging them with her fists, and while she might have a mean left hook on her own, blows backed up with a Kamui's power are pretty powerful indeed. Just one is enough to send a mobster tumbling in the other direction. "Oi, you heard 'em! Drop your shit, and stick 'em up!"

Vruasa Telash has posed:
"When do I EVER Worry about damage?" Vruasa demands of Homura, adjusting his illusions again so that he's properly visible to all of his allies, without any annoying HUD elements. He looks down upon his handiwork in the street, now empty-handed. It'll take him a while to replace those explosive spears. Dangers of having disposable, but high-cost weapons. "Why are you hanging out up here, anyway? You've got plenty of skills that you could use in this situation that don't involve mass destruction. Shit, you should just speed right up to one of the trucks and pull the driver out."

His appearance flickers, mostly to the bootleggers. Now the Knight is pretending to be an angel wielding a technicolor-and-gold sword, but he's not really going out of his way to sell the idea. Instead, he's just relying on the image and his apparent invincibility to let him coast along being lazy. Speaking of, this is exactly what Vruasa does, drifting down from on high at a leisurely pace.

The illusions that surround him offer up the visual of his eyes coming alight with flames, followed by columns of white fire bursting forth from the ground and consuming the crates of whiskey that got dumped and partially destroyed in the truck crash Actually, he's just CAPTCHALOGUING them, but Vruasa figures that if it LOOKS like he's a vengeful angel incinerating things in divine fire, it'll shake these guys up.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Homura idles in the sky. It's kind of awfully lazy.

Gangsters finally pour out of the truck, though, so she equips herself with... absolutely nothing. There is no reason to make herself any more visible a threat than she already is, after all. This does not really change what happens next.

A hailstorm of pink-purple arrows of light and magic suddenly crashes down, some aimed for the men themselves, others for their weapons. The magic is not quite nonlethal, but it's not overly lethal either. A direct hit wouldn't kill someone unless it landed straight on the skull, basically, and most of the hits are aimed more towards the chest and legs, or their gun-totting hands.

She's feeling slightly more magical girly than usual today.
For what it's worth Vruasa can tell she stopped time, produced her bow and shot a buncha arrows before resuming it. She does, idly, answer him: "I could! ... I sure could. Well, so could YOU. Why aren't you?" Floating next to him, she probably looks a lot less intimidating than he does right now. What with the pink wings.

Eliot Ness (264) has posed:
It's not actually that hard for Kiyoko and Fiora to catch up to the man as he runs. He's middle-aged, out of shape, and carrying a briefcase clutched to his chest. Plus he has no real practice running through tall grass. This means that when they eventually come upon him, he's not hard to trip or immobilize. And if they did so, he'd go sprawling and keep the briefcase clutched to his chest.

BOOM! The tires on the truck that Harry aims at all blow out at once. The act of this causes men to jump and dodge as if a grenade had been thrown their way, not sure what is really going on. They don't put down their guns, but they do take to running, trying to flee from the fireball shooting man as they head in all directions. A couple do surrender, though, lowering their guns and putting their hands up.

Ryuko's powerful punches send people spawling, the men not able to stand up to her Kamui-enhanced blows. They tumble over eachother and go flying, landing in heaps. Many of the men that were shooting her scatter and head towards the treeline, not wanting to surrender, but not wanting to fight. A good number of these men are sent sprawling out by the rain of pink that lands upon them. The Puella layabout is able to take out a larger number of their forces.

And then there's Vruasa. No one really wants to fight him. No one really wants to interact with Vruasa in any meaningful capacity. He's a blazing angel who is currently scattering forces to the wind. Most are fleeing in terror from him and Homura.

What would have been, for police, a very likely chase and prolonged battle has been a siegebreaker smash for the Elites who have more or less scattered the mafia forces to the wind.

Kiyoko Saito (131) has posed:
A BRIEFCASE! Yes, Kiyoko tripped him, probably with a wire. She remembers the last time a briefcase was opened here though, and looks at Fiora warily. "Right. I'm going to hold my breath this time. Let's see what's in here... or you can open it and I can tie this guy up! Hey guy, what's in the briefcase? Noodles? Papers? A cool collapsible car?"

Now she's just making stuff up, seriously.

But she's going to tie him up if she can. "I'll leave it up to you," she says to Fiora. "To open it or just hand it over to the authoritais."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
"Because," Vruasa explains to Homura matter-of-factly, while he's incinerating/collecting crates of whiskey, "doing things the easy way all the time is fucking boring. Plus, this is funny as hell." From the perspective of most onlookers however, the Angel drifts among the crates of alcohol and sends them up into greater and greater columns of white flame. Its feet never quite touch the ground, something that the Knight himself can imitate with his own power of flight.

Come to think of it though, where the hell did Fiora get off to? Vruasa glances around, an expression of detached interest lingering on his face. Probably collecting whiskey from one of the other trucks, he supposes, or otherwise pursuing something of interest.

"I wish I had the power to turn people into salt." He asides to Homura, as he collects yet another crates. "Gods get to do that kind of shit all the time in the stories. All I can do is fake people out. I guess I could probably mess with people's sense of time and shit, but it wouldn't be very funny to watch."

It COULD be, but Vruasa isn't thinking of sufficiently creative applications right now to find it amusing.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
"Yeah, feel free to tie him up." Fiora offers, looking sour.

Briefcases. "Hey, you fucking joker! If I open this, will poison gas kill me? If you say yes, I'll ask you to make it not do that. If you say no, I'm going to open it right next to your face. So, really, make strong, logical decisions with your next few seconds." Fiora grumbles, before thumbing the locks idly.

"Also, you should probably lay off the cigarettes. I hear they cause lung cancer, in addition to incredible coolness."

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
Harry Dresden is calling up more fire. He's not a flaming angel of death and also booze, but he is a Wizard. The Tall Man starts spewing out Highly Threatening Pseudo-Latin at the mooks, and making little fire balls flie out and smack and sputter into the metal sides of the trucks. Nothing to actually start precious booze on fire, but impressive none the less. "THAT'S RIGHT! RUN OR SUBMIT!"
Oh hey, some of them are actually submitting. Dresden hollars a bit. "Who wants some prisoners?"
And with that, he neatly pulls some zipties out of one of the pockets of his duster, and starts hand-cuffing the surrendering men.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
"I figured that would be your answer. Well, boring is one way to put it," Homura replies to Vruasa, never quite leaving his side. She does not help herself to delicious alcohol, though, out of respect to Ness' cause. Also she doesn't drink, and doesn't really know anyone who drinks except... well, alright, sure.

Homura picks a bottle up, idly, and stashes it away.
That'll be for Psyber.

"What about turning them really old? Or arbitrarily altering how time applies to them, possibly at complete random. Give it the "gift that is actually a curse" angle. I don't know, superspeed at night, slow as a snail during the day." She shrugs. This whole thing is not really her forte.

She's pretty sure if she was a god of any kind she'd just kill people.
Not deal with all that crap.

Well, if the gangsters aren't going to mess with them out of fear, she's going to check inside this truck and see if there's anything but crates of alcohol in there.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
A couple of the guys Ryuko hit don't get back up. Well, it's not like anyone's going to miss them, really. Ryuko rolls her shoulder and cracks her neck a bit, as she makes her way back over to Ness. "So, what's the plan now?" She asks, now that the fight is more or less over. She's hoping for more, it'd seem.

Eliot Ness (264) has posed:
With all the guys unconscious on the ground, Dresden isn't going to have too terribly difficult a time tying them down for as long as he has the zipties to do so. A lot of guys are either totally submissive or aren't moving too much due to being unconscious.

Homura finds, in the overturned truck, that it wasn't just booze they were hauling. A couple of bags of money are strewn about the inside of a truckbed, scattered by the crash and sent sprawling.

The man that Kiyoko tied down with her wire whimpers when the briefcase is taken out of his hand. He whimpers MORE when Fiora threatens him, shaking his head repeatedly. But before Fiora can OPEN the briefcase, a horse trots by her. Ness reaches down and plucks it out of her hands.

The Agent jimmies open the locks with a knife, popping it open easily before reaching in and pulling out the MacGuffin. 3-4 inches thick, hardcover, bound in leather. It has notes and pages inserted, "We have acquired the Ledger, everyone." He declares simply.

Harry Dresden (206) has posed:
Harry Dresden sighs as he runs out of zipties, and looks around at all the people on the ground. Well, he didn't kill anyone with magic. Good. Don't need to go down that road today.
And then Eliot gives the good news! "Huzzah! That's great. Wooo." Not that he's trying to be blaze about that, but he's a bit out of breath hauling mooks around and lining them up against the base of the trucks. "I think we need to shuffle these jerks around somewhere that isn't Chicago PD. What do you think? Drop em off in the Twin Cities, let them experience Minnesota Nice?"

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
Oh hey bags of cash.
What a great unit of measurement.

Homura dumps them at Eliot's feet, having no use for them.

"I'm sure you and your men need this more than they do now. Whatever it is you do with money you retrieve." Stuff it in the treasury, she figures. But oh well.

Kiyoko Saito (131) has posed:
"I guess that's the start of something big, huh?" Kiyoko states, with a little curtsy to the man she just tied up. "Sorry sir. Well, not really sorry, but thanks for being so cooperative!" Kiyoko is even speaking English right now! She's had enough practice with it she's gotten pretty good, though with a notable accent.

'FIRE HIM FROM A CANNON,' Transendent Star suggests, earning a light swat.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
VRUASA TELASH would ordinarily do something clever, nasty, and funny. Unfortunately, he's too busy trying to figure out what clever, nasty, or funny thing to do in order to actually get it done. He ends up sitting there hovering in mid-air, looking like a dope, until everybody is already getting moving and heading on. Which is all well and good, because cursing somebody with horrible temporal disjunction problems isn't as easy to determine as the reality of a burning bush or an angel hovering around setting things on fire.

He makes a frustrated noise, and finishes collecting discarded whiskey crates before flying off to re-join the others. Unfortunately, this means that Homura was treated to a few moments of the Knight of Time simply sitting around THINKING INTENSELY, which is not particularly entertaining or informative.