Scene #7868: Target #1: Jose De Leon

Owner	Pose
Janine Liberi	Jose de Leon is not in his homeland of Spain. Rather, he has retreated to a villa in the mountains of France. This does at least limit collateral damage of this strike, but it also makes the approach much more difficult. A single, narrow road leads up to the front gates, with a sheer drop below and a vertical cliff above. The front gates are armoured, and while the blueprints filed with the government would not list them, there are absolutely gun emplacements on the towers beside it. Unless one is feeling particularly brave or skilled, that means other approaches are necessary. From the back of a rented van at the foot of the mountain, Janine lays it out on a crude map provided by August. A waterfall emerges from the mountain beneath the villa. This is actually artificial. The villa has dammed a natural spring for their personal use, and the waterfall is the overflow used also as a sewage system. Were one willing to swim up it, or climb the mountain beside it and enter, they would be in the guts of the villa with low security. Another approach is by the air. Janine can fly, so she'll be taking this. But for those without the innate means, she's obtained paragliders. With her wind manipulation, she can ensure that even rookies can have a safe landing in the backyard of the villa. This would be a medium security risk, as someone is bound to notice the landing, but security is no doubt focussed on the front, so they'll have a moment to prepare. Unless anyone has any brighter ideas, August begins the drive up the mountain to drop everyone off where they need to be to begin the plan.
Featherman Neo	"Alright, so. Apocalypse nut here has moved everything from legal to illegal. He's bad news, obviously. At his control, he could probably disrupt some trade lines with enough effort." August Kohler explains on the drive up, both hands on the wheel. "Luckily, he's too busy thinking the end is nigh, and that means he's locked himself in a fortress." "When the fuck has the Watch ever cared about fortresses, right?" He grins. "His death will be the kind of blessing he could only hope God grants." Once they reach the mountain dropoff point, August hangs at the van. "I'll be providing support, unless one of you wants me to come with them. I've got the map and a radio, and can spot if guards are moving. Happy hunting."
Karlan Nobles	Although the snow leopard siblings are well acquainted with mountainous regionds, they're not especially great at climbing. What they (or at least Pramanix) is particularly good at, however, is freezing stuff. She's practically bouncing in place when the map of the area is provided, and she sees that waterfall being detailed as a potential infiltration point. SilverAsh: "You're not ignoring the sewage part of that, right?" Pramanix: "No, no, not at all. That's why we'll need an ice elevator, not an ice lift." SilverAsh: "Do you know how to build an elevator?" Pramanix: "... How hard could it be? I just need to make an ice box." SilverAsh: "That's something else entirely." Once the two are finished sniping at each other from across the van, Pramanix details her idea for getting in a little more: Using the waterfall, she's going to make an ice box large enough for the crew to ride in (with a roof to protect them from sewage), and then steadily freeze the water below them until their box is pushed aaaall the way up. August's offer of assistance is given a firm nod by SilverAsh. "I don't expect this to finish quietly, so I'm sure we'll need your aid once things start heating up. That said, what is your specialty?" He asks while looking towards Janine. "Are you also capable of flight, or is that Liberi's domain exclusively?"
Featherman Neo	"Close-range combat DPS. Tanking." Terms SilverAsh has probably never heard before, from August. "My Persona has a big sword and fire and darkness, so if you need me to hold off guards, I can."
Rita Ma	The ride over is nice. Rita sticks her head outside the window for a little while before they get too close, marveling at the beautiful countryside and letting her long hair flutter in the wind. "This is only my third time in a car, you know," she says to nobody in particular. "They're really fun! Is it always this pretty?" After a few minutes, she pulls herself back in and rolls it up, but only reluctantly. "What kind of support?" Rita innocently asks, craning her neck to peek into the front seat. August answers her question a moment later. "Oh. Radio and spotting... I'm sure that'll be a big help, Mr..." A brief, awkward pause. She glances to Janine haplessly, looking for a reminder. The underwater infiltration would be extremely well-suited to Rita- though she's come looking like an ordinary girl, Pramanix at minimum knows exactly how good a swimmer she is. And yet: "Sewage?? You mean like... eughhh." Her eyes slide off to the side with a slight grimace; her hands clutch fistfuls of her skirt. Even Pramanix's plan still seems to make her a little nervous. Fortunately, she is feeling particularly skilled. "I'll take the front door, then," she finally resolves. "Trust me, okay?" When the plan is put into motion, Rita simply disappears. Nobody sees the girl walking up the narrow path, because there is nothing to be seen. And with nothing to see, even if they hear a soft, muffled noise from her leaping over the wall, why would they be alarmed? She lands on the other side and tries to find a quiet nook, away from prying eyes, to duck into and decloak before her chromatophores get too tired.
Janine Liberi	"Not always. France is really pretty, once you get away from the French people," Janine says in reply to Rita. "He's a wall," she says to SilverAsh. "He got regeneration powers when his Persona awakened, and I got flight." The plan is put into motion. First to be dropped off is Pramanix and SilverAsh, by a small cliff where the waterfall lands. A trench has been dug down her to divert the water further down the mountain. The plume of water is dense enough to entirely camoflage them as the ice box is put into affect, allowing them to slowly ascend. The water isn't even that smelly thankfully. One billionaire and his staff does not a lot of poop make. Once they reach the top, they find an access walkway to walk on. The interior is made of concrete, dimly lit and slick, with many pipes feeding into the water tumbling down the mountain, which is fed by a large reservoir of clean water. A flight of stairs leads up to storage tunnels for the villa. Distant conversations echo against the walls. No one is down here, so plenty of time to plan their next move. Track down the target, cause some mayhem, find the security room and do intel, the siblings have choices to spare. Rita is dropped off just out of sight of the villa. Janine gets out too to take to the air. "Stay here August. And if things go bad, ram the gates so we have a quick exit." With that, she soars, and Rita goes invisible and walks right up to the gates. A man this paranoid probably would have demanded infrared cameras, motion detectors, and the like, but such things are hard to use and maintain so those are likely off, allowing Rita to easily clamber over onto the villa grounds. Above the stately front doors is a stained glass fresco of the Immaculate Conception. Jose really does wear his faith on his sleeve. The front door is open, a thick man in a suit smoking as he leans against the wall, allowing Rita to slip inside without arousing suspicion. The inside is sheer opulence, walls hanging heavy with gorgeous paintings of events in Catholic dogma. Distant chatter and the clink of pots and pans can be heard in the kitchen as staff prepare the evening meal. The man himself is of course, nowhere in sight. Time to find where he prays.
Featherman Neo	August nods, and grabs his MP3 player. "Sure. I'm good at ramming things." He puts in earbuds, plays some music, and keeps the radio on his lap. Over the comms, he speaks up. <"Signal me when you're ready, if I don't see anything myself. I'll be listening to Paramore until then.">
Karlan Nobles	"A close combat specialist... Interesting. It sounds like these Persona are as varied as yourself and Liberi, never mind whoever else may be able to manifest these things. How curious." SilverAsh replies with an amused noise. Despite his unfamiliarity with Persona, he somehow seems to have recognized the other terms August used. SilverAsh doesn't elaborate beyond that. "Sewage." Pramanix gives Rita a knowing nod, not looking all too pleased about that angle herself. "But there'll be a roof, so it'll be fine! It'll have to be, if I'm in it." She sounds confident, but still a little grossed out regardless. Clearly, Pramanix is trying not to think too hard about it. Thankfully, it's easy not to when the siblings are dropped off at the cliff below the waterfall, and there's not too much of a smell to speak of. Just knowing that it's there is still enough for Pramanix to be really careful about how she makes the ice box, though. She puts extra curves and angles to the roof, does something similar with a covered walkway towards the icebox, and even adds a second roof once she and SilverAsh are inside the thing to try angling the falling water away from the walkway itself and the interior of the box. It'd be almost impressive if it didn't take her longer to make than it does to actually get them up there. Thankfully, SilverAsh doesn't make any comments about that, since he's looking rather pleased about not getting any of that water on himself, either. Heading down that walkway, Pramanix does a bit of scouting to make sure the coast is clear before signaling for SilverAsh to follow her. She's the sneaking expert(ish) of the two, after all, and they both stop once they've sufficiently narrowed down their options. It takes a while, but they eventually settle on... Looking for the villa's security center! Taking out their eyes should make everything else easier, after all, especially if it might also lead to finding the target in the process. Once again, Pramanix takes the lead with her sneaking-out-of-the-villa training while SilverAsh lingers further behind her, sticking close to walls and waist-high cover to peer around before slinking through the hallways. They're armed with iron pipe and sword (respectively), ready to bash in the heads of anyone that might need to be subdued on their way through (nonlethally) (long term damage notwithstanding).
Rita Ma	Rita's mouth hangs open and her eyes go wide when the stained-glass window comes into view. It's all she can do to stop herself from letting out a little gasp of amazement, for how disastrous that'd be. Rich people really do get all the beautiful things, don't they? ... No, of course they would. But it still makes my heart ache. Shouldn't things like this belong to everybody? The smoke is disturbed just slightly by her passing, but it could be mistaken for the breeze. Once properly inside, she peeks around the corner at the kitchen staff to get a good look at their uniforms and very stubbornly resists the smell of raw meat inside. After a moment of study, she decloaks and shifts into a disguise that makes her look exactly like a member of the staff, erring on the younger side of plausible so that her voice won't seem too out-of-place. Just like last time, she bars the kitchen doors so they won't get caught in the crossfire. This time it's with camouflaged tentaclestuff gluing them together, almost invisible but obnoxiously tough. Time to head deeper in. Now that she has at least a plausible disguise, Rita sneakily tastes the air with her tongue as she walks. De Leon is likely to be deep in prayer, and a man so opulent and devoted is liable to have a room just for it. Can she catch the scent or flavor of candles? Of incense? Of wine, or dusty pages? ... Honestly she's a little fuzzy on what Catholicism exactly entails.
Janine Liberi	The Karlan Nobles creep through the tunnels. As it turns out, the security centre is down here, behind a door that is supposed to be lock. But of course, it isn't. It hangs ajar, allowing the two to creep up on the guard listening to music. However, he does catch a glimpse of them in the reflection of an inactive monitor at the last second. He spins around and exclaims, "Hey-" before getting cold cocked into oblivion. The cameras show every part of the manor. The kitchen, the hallways, the bedrooms. And a door on the third floor, defended by two large men wearing gun holsters on their hips. Rita meanwhile hears the sound of the door straining against her invisible barricade as she sniffs the air. Candles, incense... there. Third floor. But also... the scent of flop sweat, bodily waste, somewhere on the second floor. Old blood too, and tears. Someone is being kept here, against their will. At this moment, Janine radios in. "I'm circling from the air, and a helicoptor is coming down. He might actually be leaving. Pick up the pace people!"
Rita Ma	<J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma !! <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "There's... there's something else on the second floor." <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Mr. SilverAsh, Ms. Pramanix, please go to the third! That's where he is." <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "I'll... try to be right behind you." Rita dashes for the second floor, the plausibility of her disguise tarnished by the fact that she moves faster than an Olympic sprinter and that she takes the corners on all fours. That isn't at the forefront of her mind, though. Ms. Pramanix and Mr. SilverAsh can handle Jose. I don't think they'd want to see what I'd have to do to him, anyway. But as soon as the alarm goes off, or he gets in that helicopter, we'll want to leave. That means I've got to be quick. And whoever this is, I can't just leave them...! Only when she gets dangerously close to the source of the captive's scent does she straighten up, slowing to a brisk walk. They're likely to be guarded, so the disguise might buy her a few precious seconds.
Karlan Nobles	With eyes on the facility, the pair at the cameras take note of who and what they're seeing. They relay what they're seeing to their allies, too, however briefly about the third floor being well defended. It happens just in time for Rita to catch wind of where their target is, too, and they're about to both head for the third floor when... 'I'm circling from the air, and a helicoptor is coming down. He might actually be leaving. Pick up the pace people!' SilverAsh: "At least wait until the rest of us can make some noise elsewhere." Pramanix: "Oh, it'll be fine. If any guards actually come all the way back here, it'll be less for everyone else to handle!" Sighing lightly, SilverAsh doesn't bother trying to convince Pramanix as he just follows that lead from Rita to start heading for the third floor. With the layout of the villa still fresh in his mind, he already has his sword out and ready for a running quick draw slash before he even physically sees those two guards in the hallway. He's at least aiming for center mass instead of their faces or something. He's also just not trying that hard not to kill anyone, either. Pramanix, meanwhile, works with what Janine's told them about the heli and scrambles back to get to the walkway that she had come in from earlier. It's not quite the same as being fully outside, but it'll have to do. With her bell in hand and a modest amount of room to work with, she warns Janine to touch down and starts her usual ritual of bringing down the snow and wind through dance, bell chimes, and gentle vocalizing of questionable necessity. It'll take a bit of time for the ritual to really kick in, but that unseasonable snowfall will soon turn into a hailstorm around the villa, raining down blocks of ice dense enough to put holes in tiles, glass, and even give planes trouble powering through.
Janine Liberi	Rita causes a domestic servant to shriek as she rounds a corner on all fours, nearing the source of the smell. Another one is emerging from the room where the scent is strongest, looking like a deer in headlights. Through the still-open door, Rita can see it. A woman, chained to the bed, naked. "Oh, um... are you here to deliver her to the trade?" the maid asks Rita. The trade. The helicoptor isn't here to pick Jose up. It's here to make a trade. The woman for something else. At that moment, SilverAsh rushes past them! Making for the third floor, the servant from before and now this one shriek, drawing one of the big boys down from guarding the third floor. Before he can even draw, a quick slash brings him down, his gurgling cries alerting the man upstairs. His gun is out and firing as the swordsman approaches, but he's no Elite. The shots are easily low profiled and he too is brought down. At that moment, the door they were guarding opens. Jose de Leon, just like in Janine's photo. A dark-skinned man with dark hair and handsome stubble and a lean, wiry body. He wears only briefs, and blood drips from his back. In his hands is a cat-o-nine-tails. "What is the meaning of this?"
Karlan Nobles	While Pramanix stays outside-ish to do her blizzard thing, SilverAsh is left to figure out what to do with Jose. His coat has some holes in it along with a few bloody marks across his limbs, but it's nothing his self-regeneration can't handle eventually. What he sees in Jose's room, however, might need a bit more time to process. Their target is bleeding, but it looks like it might be from something of his own doing. He's also barely dressed, which strikes SilverAsh as a little... "I suppose it's not too unexpected for someone with this much money and privacy to entertain themselves this way." SilverAsh comments with a light sigh, sword still drawn as he slides it across one of the fallen guards' jackets (since he's not about to get it on his own). Once that's clear, he points it towards Jose De Leon, hunching forward slightly and ready to dash forwards for another slash right through a leg or arm if he starts freaking out. "If you want to live, I recommend cooperating." SilverAsh states plainly despite having no actual intent to let him live. He's just trying to see if he can get some names off the guy first. "Who is that helicopter for? Where's it going, and why?"
Featherman Neo	August may be rocking to tunes in his van, but the minute they talk about the helicopter and that they've found Jose, his eyes scan up towards the guards. He places one foot above the pedal. He prepares. As soon as things go loud, or he's given the call, he's gonna ram the gate.
Rita Ma	Rita registers that the woman behind the door is naked before she registers that she's chained to the bed. There's a moment of visible embarrassment as she looks past the maid, of 'I'm sorry I really shouldn't have seen this'. It takes a moment to click, and when it does all the apologetic fluster drains out of her face in an instant. The maid is, in that heartbeat, recategorized in Rita's mind from "hapless employee" to "bad person". With shock-widened eyes and a sudden hiss of breath, she grabs the maid's head and slams it against the wall hard enough to crack wood. She then steps over her and into the room; as she does, the servant-disguise melts off her to be replaced with her mundane clothes so she can't be mistaken for an accomplice of de Leon's. "Excuse me? I'm sorry," she murmurs in as soothing a tone as she can manage, averting her eyes. The woman's chain seems to break all on its own, severed by an invisible tentacle. "I'm not with them, I promise. Please, we'll get you out of here." Similarly, as if from nowhere, a simple servant's outfit weaves itself in midair and falls onto the bed. It's perfectly wearable, if a bit strangely heavy and cool. "Is there anyone else being held here? Or anything important to you? We don't have much time."
Janine Liberi	Jose's face pales as his brain finally catches up to what is happening. "I am performing penance for what I must do. I make a trade today, a woman's life for bartering tools in the world to come. God looks upon us with wrath once more. Sodom and Gomorrah will be as a mere spilling of milk. Only hard, brave men will survive, and I will be one of them." He raises his head, to present his neck. "If you are here to take me, do it. I am prepared." Outside, the helicopter is hovering, trying to stay aloft in the blizzard. When suddenly, Janine hurtles in like a bullet, piercing through the window on the side. Sounds of violence are snatched by the wind as the helicoptor comes down, only for swirling winds to catch it before it crashes into the backyard, gently setting it down on its side. Security however, has marshalled around the fallen craft. The girl might need an assist here. Rita meanwhile feels the crunch of bone giving way as she slams this woman's head against the wall. Going into the room, she frees the other who speaks in a thick Romanian accent. "No. Just me I think. That man, he said as much. One life to save many he told me." Gratefully, she puts on the offered uniform and lets Rita take point. But the moment they come out, a security guard stands at the end of the hall, handgun drawn. "On the ground, both of you!"
Karlan Nobles	Janine calls for more snow, and more snow she gets. Pramanix's blizzard intensifies further, and it's likely to take out some of the helicopter's propellers at the rate that hail is coming down. Her steps take her steadily towards the waterfall again, and it's not long before she's created small steps for herself to start approaching the villa's roof in order to head for the roof as well. She's still quite a distance away from the roof, though, so she'll have to settle with just seeing Janine being approached by the converging security forces. Pramanix takes advantage of seeing them before they can (probably) see her, though, an she starts blasting the crap out of the security forces with more concentrated bricks of ice. With any luck, Janine might even be able to take advantage of the sheer quantity of stuff lying/flying around already! SilverAsh, meanwhile, still has Jose to deal with. "Sacrificing someone else's life for your own? Practical, but pathetic." He scowls while stepping forward, pressing the tip of his blade against Jose's presented neck. "I have only known one person to have ever met their god, and-" He sweeps his free arm dramatically towards the window, indicating the unseasonable blizzard that's only getting worse by the moment. "Were it not for the atrocities you've committed, their wrath would have never been brought here. You brought about your own downfall here." And then he slices straight down, not quite giving Jose the quick death he might hope for while making sure he's cutting deep enough to cause a fairly quick death via blood loss and shock for a normal person without immediate/supernatural intervention. Only then does SilverAsh finally start making his way for the second floor to join up with Rita to make sure she and whoever she found are able to regroup safely.
Rita Ma	'One life to save many.' Even with her face averted, Rita can't entirely hide a nauseated grimace at that. "All that stuff is over now," she manages to say, still feeling off-balance from the shock. "Just stay close to me, okay? There are going to be people with guns, but once we make it to the van, we'll be safe." That prediction comes true nearly as soon as she turns to leave. Rita's eyes open in genuine fear when the guard levels a gun at her. The number of times she's been held at gunpoint she can still likely count on one hand, and an upsetting number of them were a decade ago. She raises her hands and slowly sinks to both knees. But before they can touch the floor, an invisible tentacle slices to detach the guard's hands from his body without warning, sending them and the gun clattering to the ground. In an eyeblink, she drops to a crouch and lunges to cross the distance between them. Her arm swipes, and her fingertips carve furrows into his chest deep enough to rupture organs. 5R She glances back at the former captive, eyes still a little wide with adrenaline, and does her best to smile a sheepish reassuring smile while offering her the non-bloodsoaked hand to hold. "I'm sorry. We... it's important to keep moving." Why did I do that? Why couldn't I have made it cleaner? I wasn't thinking. She's going to hate me now. This was so stupid... It's in that position that SilverAsh is likely to find her. Her eyes dart to him, conflicted between desperate hope (that she'll trust him more) and shame (that he had to see her soaked in gore to the elbow). If he doesn't have a better way out, her plan is simply to find an exterior wall and punch a person-sized hole in it, then jump down to bypass the first floor altogether.
Featherman Neo	As soon as the others escape with the girl and he sees them coming out, August rams the gate, moving to drift the van enough to slam into any guards in the way. He draws his revolver, blowing out brains of any that he can't hit through the open window. "Come on, get in! Let's get the hell out of here as soon as Janine's back!"
Janine Liberi	As Pramanix rains down shards of ice on the security team, giving Janine the opening she needs. The door of the coptor flies off, and threads snatch it to swing it at the rest. She emerges, hovering, holding a wrapped package that spills white power. "It's drugs! He's trading for fucking drugs!" she yells over the storm. Catherine looms over her and adds to Pramanix's blizzard, creating a storm that starts making the villa shake and lift from its foundations. Inside, SilverAsh's blade cuts true. Jose does not get the quick, elegant death he was hoping for. He falls, gurgling, and trying to keep his organs inside. Rita severs the guard's hand, causing him to fall and clutch the stump. The woman... smiles at her? "It's okay. Very cool." She nods, and allows the girl to lead her out. The last security guard manning the front is gunned down as August takes down the gates. Janine flies over the building, grabbing Pramanix on the way and bundling her into the back. SilverAsh, Rita, and the freed woman face no more challenges on their way out. The van speeds down the mountainside as the storm rips the villa apart and sends it tumbling down the mountain.
Rita Ma	A sigh of deep, tension draining relief leaves Rita in a little puff. She suddenly looks embarrassed (for jumping to the worst-case scenario like that), but not, at least, ashamed. "Thanks," she says sheepishly, like she doesn't really agree. The man gurgling on the floor gets no sympathy. You're almost home free. Don't lick the blood off, Rita. Don't lick it off. Don't. Punching a hole in the wall is comparatively easy. Getting out the second-story hole is also easy, though just in case, a mysterious force levitates the ex-captive woman out the hole and safely to the ground. Can't have her twisting her ankle at the last moment. She's a little distant and shaken on the ride back, though the scenery cheers her up a fair bit. "I'm Rita, by the way," she says to the rescuee, offering her a handshake with her left hand. "I'm really glad we could get you out of there. What's your name?" Once de Leon's mansion has vanished into the distance, she glances down at her right arm. "Ms. Liberi? Do you have any tissue paper up there?
Karlan Nobles	"Drugs? Ah, we can't have any of that!" Pramanix, hearing Janine's callout, adds one more wrinkle to the storm: She brings down enough hail to just demolish the shit out of that helicopter, and just in time to get scooped up into the van (complete with a startled noise and just kinda going limp until she's put down). SilverAsh, meanwhile, plays the role of the responsible but kind of aloof/edgelordy protective older dude for Rita and escapee! It's not until everyone's safely back in the van that he finally relaxes, although he still keeps his eyes out the window just to make sure they're not being tailed. SilverAsh: "What do you intend to do now?" Pramanix: "She just got out of that place! REally... A-ah. Don't worry, dear. We'll make sure you get home safe and sound." SilverAsh: "You're welcome to come work with us if you need to lay low for the time being. If you happen to know anything, we'll surely listen and take that into account as well."