3795/A picture is sometimes only worth one word.

A picture is sometimes only worth one word.
Date of Scene:	02 February 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	The Rebus wants to prove himself a villain to be reckoned with. There are not enough palms to facepalm sufficiently. There are horse targets, though.
Cast of Characters:	Stardust, Slipstream, Raijin, Shadowlite, Kaydin LeGraize, Raven

---

Stardust has posed:
A few weeks ago, a letter arrived at the Titan's Tower, containing only three pictures. An eye, a ham, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Since it arrived it has spent most of the time sitting on a desk, ignored. Along with all the rest of the Titan's mail that isn't marked URGENT!! several times in bright red letters. Out of sheer boredom yesterday, Colette fed it into the computers and got a quick analysis. The Rebus is back.

You may not have heard of The Rebus. His entry in the Who's Who of Metavillainy is short, and reads "Semi-competent knock-off of the Joker or the Riddler. Arrested by the Titans last year, but recently broke out of jail. Communicates in picture 'rebus' puzzles. Doesn't speak. Psychic with the ability to cause confusing illusions."

Although the whereabouts of The Rebus are unknown, a little bit of detective work has lead to the identities of his five known henchmen, and the Titans are on the trail. The one they are currently trailing is inside a coffee shop, ordering six coffees to go, a suspicious number. The Titans are keeping their distance, and casing the scene.

One of the Titans on the scene is Colette, or Stardust as she's known when she's behind the mask. Which, currently, she is. The street isn't exactly busy, but there's enough traffic that the sight of a costumed and masked figure, leaning nonchalantly against the wall just by the door of the coffee shop, is attracting a fair amount of stares. No autograph hunters though, she's not that famous. "I'm bored," she whispers into the Titan's communicator. "Stakeouts are boring." That's never a good sign.

Slipstream has posed:
Having been persuaded to force himself to go out more and less behind a keyboard is Drake. The world famous pro-gamer (if you're into that) and super streamer is making his way down the street towards the coffee shop. Today he is wearing a black pair of cargo pants and a dark green Overwatch logo shirt beneath a gray and black varsity styled hoodie. He is tapping away at his phone with one hand while his other is holding a warming bag to keep his fingers toasty and loose as he squeezes it a few times and bounces it about in his palm. As he turns the corner and spies Stardust, recognition falls over his face for a moment as he lifts a hand and waves to her. She was there during that whole Wolfenstein debacle that over ran New York for a bit. "Hey." He calls over with a grin. "Wow, I haven't seen you in forever. Uh .." He glances to the coffee shop for a moment. ".. you doing a promotional thing or something?"

Raijin has posed:
Rayner, Titan codenamed Raijin, was actually chilling on the edge of a building, speaking into his communicator. "I know..give it a minute. Should I sing a tune?" the sound of a small chuckle from the other side as he looks around...awaiting this particular enemy.

"I don't like this..." Rayner mumbles mainly to himself as he looks about, keeping eyes and ears peeled. He's in costume thankfully enough, so not many people can spot him.

Shadowlite has posed:
One of the patrons of the coffee shop, reading from a tablet, is a blonde man named Michael. This isn't his favorite place, but Michaels favorite place is closed today, so nothing for it.

He's just going about his day. Yep. The heroes, he gives a glance to them if they come into the open... but otherwise isn't all that interested in dealing with them.

Dealing with them means drawing attention to himself.

Kaydin LeGraize has posed:
    A blur of lightning and motion is the only announcement. it begins to circle the coffee shop, lap after lap after lap. After about the tenth or twentieth lap the blur moves into the store and people begin to walk out with coffees, with the blur stopping long enough to reveal Kaydin with a grin as he sips a hot cocoa. The heroes are ignored for the moment, for cocoa comes before crime fighting.

Raven has posed:
    About a year ago, Raven remembers pulling herself out of high school with an unsurprising amount of perfection, in addition to her work with the Titans. It's been a while since she had thought about the Rebus, other than to mock him in passing. She mocks a lot of people in passing.

    Nonetheless, she got the call to come down and help out with his resurgence post-escape, and right now, has holed herself up in a small boutique across the way from the caf? that their target is performing such mundane actions in. She's idly looking at a pair of tanktops that she is, true to form, considering purchasing when Colette comes in over her old communicator.

    "Don't worry, we'll screw it up soon. These things have a habit of turning violent."

Stardust has posed:
"Keep your eyes peeled on the street, Rainman," Stardust says into her communicator. "The others have got to be around somewhere." She hooks the communicator to her belt and stretches, tapping a foot in the kind of antsy fashion that suggest she's thinking hard about a change in tactics from the whole subtle stakeout thing. Raven, as so often happens, is probably right.

  Stardust lifts her head, then raises an eyebrow at Drake as he approaches her. "Hey... oh heya! Uh... Dynamite Dave, right? The whole Nazis thing..." she mimes punching someone in the face. "That was fun. How's things? Won any e-games championships latel..." she trails off as a blur zooms past the conversing pair, and she watches the blur as it zooms past a few more times. "That's... I don't know what that is," she concludes with a shrug. Hey, it's a free city, blurs can buy hot cocoa too. "So no, not a promotion, I..." the door swings open, and the henchman appears, carrying his half dozen cups of coffee. If she hadn't been distracted by Drake and Kaydin, Stardust would have melted into the shadows of the next doorway by now, but the guy is standing right next to her, and she looks a bit too hero-y to go unnoticed by someone working for the big bad.

Time for a quick change of plan. Maybe the one that Raven just came up with? That's right Stardust, blame Raven. Quick thinking. Stardust raises a finger to Drake in a 'one moment' gesture, neatly takes the tray of coffees from the henchman's hands, grabs him by the scruff of the neck, lifts him off his feet and slams him into the wall. "Right," she snarls at him. "You... uh... hold this please..." she holds the tray of coffees out to Drake. "You. Talk. Where's your boss."

"Oof. Uh! Lemme go! I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Yeah you do. But if you WANT to do this the hard way... RAVEN? Got a guy here needs intimidating."

Slipstream has posed:
"Oh. Yeah! We did. I'm on billboards now all across the city. Team Static won the Overwatch League championship against the Koreans for the first time in five years. It was awesome. But, yeah, punching nazis was fun. We should do that again someday if you get a cha--" He pauses at the blurring that speeds past them, then reaches out to take the tray of coffee from her when she hands it over. He seems far too casual for this type of situation as he plucks one of the coffees out and takes a sip off it, followed by a wrinkling of his nose. After a moment, he shrugs and continues sipping on it. "Hey." He says nonchalantly. "I kinda do this whole vibrating burst into sonic speed teleporty type of thing going on now. You want me to shake his guts up like a blender or something? I think I can do that by tickling him and focusing real hard."

Kaydin LeGraize has posed:
    Kaydin looks to see the two bugging someone. He walks quickly up behind them before looking to the man and then looks to the girl and guy. "Whats going on exactly?" Kaydin asks as he watches them, his gaze shifting between the three. He looks around to make sure someone else was seeing this.

Shadowlite has posed:
It's like watching a train wreck seconds from collision. The man behind the Shadowlite persona is side eyeing the display, curious now. The blur is noted, and his blue (contacts, if you can make them out) eyes squint at them.


Siiiip. Not as good as his usual brand of coffee, but it'll due.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner watched as Colette pulls aside someone and starts using her....rather scary personality to scare the shit out of said man. He cracks his neck slightly. "Ooohhh bringing in Raven. Well, guess it must be an interesting nut that needs cracking." Becuase bringing in a half-demon is terrifying. plain and simple.

Within the blink of an eye, Rayner is right next to Colette with his arms crossed, faint traces of electricity in his wake to describe -how- he got there that fast.

Raven has posed:
    Raven is looking over another garment, a couple over her arm, when Colette's aggression becomes readily apparent. She makes it a habit of reading the emotions of her teammates, and though the nature of Colette's powers make it somewhat inherently difficult... Raven is still most likely the strongest empath ever to live. This means that as soon as Colette gets rough, she stares up from the shelf, offers a soft sigh, and sets everything back on the rack.

    Reaching up to the side of her head, she speaks into the communicator. "Yeah, sounds like he totally needs intimidating now that he's got his coffee. Breakfast of champions. I'm on my way."

    Then, she's gone- wrapped up in the blackness that is her shadow and whisked away towards the cafe- despite only being maybe twenty, thirty feet away at most. Slipping her hands into her pockets, she looks down at the man and, without a word, she starts instilling fear into his mind. Being an empath makes interrogating easy, especially on the weak-willed.

    Sadly for anyone who figured her interrogation methods involved more... Middle-school taunting. She's more of a direct emotional manipulation sort.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust turns to Drake with a broad grin. "You got powers now? Awesome! How'd that happen?" The henchman uses the opportunity when she's distracted to flail around and kick her as hard as he can. "Tickling, though?" she continues, ignoring the kicks. "You gotta work on that. Doesn't have the make-them-cower factor. I mean what would you call yourself, The Tickler? Whole load of no."

Yes, Shadowlite. Train-wreck is a good description. Your coffee may not be the best, but you have to admit the entertainment here is better than the average coffee shop.

"Stand back please there, sir" Stardust says to Kaydin, glancing at him as he asks what's going on, but not recognizing him at once. "This man is a dangerous criminal..."

"No I'm not!"

"Point. This man is a not very dangerous criminal. I'm Stardust. With the Titans. If his band of merry psychos is around this could turn nasty." She reaches a hand and takes one of the coffees from the tray in Drake's hand, and takes a sip. "Please stay safely out of the way."

Scary personality? Oh no, Stardust is happy to leave the scaring to half-demons like Raven. Stardust isn't scary. Unless you find her weird, ultra-confident, flippant nonchalance deeply worrying. Which you probably should. However the henchman is now staring straight at Raven. "Uh... who's.. what's she..." He starts to flail again, taking Stardusts wrist with both hands and trying vainly to dislodge her grip. "Hey... stop that. What are you... what is she..." his eyes are fixed firmly on Raven's. Sweat beads his forehead. "Why are you staring at me? Stop staring!" He kicks, tries to push against the wall with his legs, swings his fists at Stardust's face. She ignores him, keeping him pinned there. "I'll talk! I'll talk! Please... don't let her hurt me! LET ME GOOOOO! I'll tell you everything!"

  "Hey Rainman," Stardust says with a nod when he arrives, letting the Henchman dangle and ignoring his please. "Any sign of the others? I figure they're gonna make their move any second if they can see us."

Sure enough, across the street and up half a block, a large van with darkened windows and a furniture removals company sign displayed on a video panel on the side, pulls out into the traffic and eases its way towards the coffee shop. As it draws alongside, the henchman raises a shaking hand and points.

The video panel on the side of the van changes, showing a series of symbols. A fishing reel, a property leasehold document, a hymn book, a lump of rock with bits of metal in it, and a group of elves from Lord of the Rings.

Shetardust turns and stares at it. "Reel... contract... prayerbook... rock... Legolas. What? Goddamit. This guy sucks as a villain. Where do we apply to get better class of... oh. Reel Lease Hymn Ore Elves. Elves. Elves? Seriously? That's the best...?"

Kaydin LeGraize has posed:
    Kaydin watches the going on while sipping his cocoa. He looks a little perplexed when the images come and he looks to Stardust. He then looks to Drake and smiles. "You were that gamer who helped out during the wolfenstein thing." He says as he snaps his fingers. He then looks to Raven and watches her, as if expecting her to grow fangs. "You really scared him." He says as he looks her over.

Shadowlite has posed:
Then, Michael is standing, his table placed in a jacket pocket. The coffee is sipped as he makes like a good bystander and moves to the side... getting a good impression of 'worried' in his demeanor as the scene starts.

"You know... if there's going to be a fight any second, might want to start working on crowd control. Since, you know-" Michael gives a vague 'around' gesture with his free hand, "-shop and public street."

Siiiiip.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner gives a little wink and a upnod to Colette. "Heya Star. What did I miss?" he says in a frienldy manner. Though as she asks him how everything was going, spotter-wise, he nods. "Yeah...no sign of anything. Other than this clown apparently." he looks to Kaydin then...then Shadowlight, giving both people a nod as he looks back to the crook.

"hm...seems he doesn't want to talk really." he says as talk of elves come up. "Elves?" he questions, appraoching more curiously. "Do tell."

Raven has posed:
    "Okay, cool, now he's going to tell us everything." she states, taking her eyes off of the man at his request, which does nothing for the fear that she's already suffused him with. She doesn't have to look at you to make you afraid.

    Her attention drifts and starts reading the emotions of everyone in a small radius, taking a general census of what they're surrounded by. Bystanders are easy enough to read. Then, she senses the van. The determination and self-righteous anger of the criminal mind is easy enough for her to pick out, especially as it starts making its way towards them.

    There's a quiet sigh that she releases then, not bored necessarily, but bothered by the minutia. "Just once, I'd like someone to go 'oh no, it's the Teen Titans, I'd better not do the thing."

    All around them, the more normal individuals start getting up and leaving- taking their food or coffee with them, but the complete roboticness of it is a little suspect... As, quite literally, Raven instills the need to escape in every last one of them, impressing empathically the level of prudence required to, you know, get out of the way. Even the cafe staff is doing their best to remain safe, though for them it involves locking the doors and taking everyone into the back.

    Probably isn't a strong enough compulsion to get anyone who isn't a normal human being, but even so, people present who aren't a part of the crew confronting the Menacing Pictionarymobile might find themselves hustling to go just a tad before they realize they probably don't have a lot to be afraid of.

    "It's... It's release them or else. There's no... You know what, you got this. You're good."

Stardust has posed:
"Elves equals Else," Colette explains to Rayner. "Release him or elves. He couldn't think of anything better than 'elves' to do 'else'. See what I mean about this guy?" When he mentions the Wolfenstien thing, Stardust turns her head curiously to stare at Kaydin. "Oh hey! You're the fast guy. Grabbing bullets. That was a neat trick! Never did catch your name." Focus, Stardust. There's a face-off with villains happening right now.

"You're right. He's right." Stardust snaps a finger towards Michael. "Good point. Hey, Rainman, speedy guy. Think you could clear the... Oh, no need." As Raven's empathic influence settles on the crowd, people start to make their way, in a determined but non-panicky manner, out of the scene.

The doors of the van open, and four men step out. They're all dressed identically to first henchman, which is a little weird as there's nothing particularly uniform-like about what he's wearing. Just four guys in identical suits. Cheap suits, too. Kind of low-rent Reservoir Dogs. The four are carrying pistols in one hand, and have knuckledusters in the other. This really should be short work for the heroes.

Except... there suddenly aren't four of them. There's a whole street of them. Indeed, everyone now looks like one of the henchmen, including the heroes. If, that is, your mind is susceptible to psychically-induced confusion. It's not mind control or illusion-making, it's not that potent. It's insidious though. However it's of limited effect, because most of the duplicate henchmen are in the process of fleeing the scene.

On the side of the van, a new set of symbols appears. An eye, a goat, a horse, archery target, period. Horse, target, number four, horse target. One of the many henchmen, who's holding up another by the scruff of the neck and talks with Stardust's voice, reads it out. "I goat horse targe... oh for the love of..." she drops the terrified henchman, who immediately makes for the hills, and steps forwards and holds out her arms "Yeah, okay. Hostage swap. You can take me, I don't mind. Let your horse target go."

Shadowlite has posed:
For his part, Michael has the distinct aura of amusement, directed at the whole affair. When he feels the compulsion hit though, and he doesn't really fight it. Then, when someone decides to screw with his vision? There's a brief moment where Michael blinks, then groans. Then, he's taking off into a nook, out of sight.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner looks at Colette when she offers herself as a hostage for an exchange. "Uuhh...yeah, no." given, he can most certainly get her back -after- the exchange, but he doesn't seem to have much choice. Colette wins all of their arguments, much to his chagrin. Either way, his eyes fall on the criminals as they approach...the visual image starting to mess with his head.

"Woah...okay, that's trippy."

Thankfully, it's not hard for him to seperate and differentiate. "Okay..." he gets into a stance where he can run...

Raven has posed:
    To be completely frank, Raven isn't very easily confused. In fact, the only person who has ever really managed to reliably psychically get the upper hand on her is her father, which is a pretty high benchmark. She notes -that- a psychic disturbance is occurring, but not really what it is, as it doesn't particularly have much effect on her.

    What does, though, is the next set of picture clues. "This is probably... No, no this -is- the most pathetic thing." She nods to herself, then, "I think we should do what he wants. I'm willing to give this guy a win. I think he needs it."

    Raven's sarcasm is so heavy, you could actually use it as a weapon. It's basically what she does. Colette is handling the negotiation, but Raven chimes in- "I think he has four horse targets. That seems like way too many horse targets."

Stardust has posed:
"No no, Rae. It's a swap deal," Stardust explains. "He's only got one horse target. But he wants a higher value horse target. We've been ingeniously set up by this criminal mastermind. This whole thing was about him getting a Titan as a horse target. It's clear to me now."

  Stardust gives a quick wink to Rayner. "It's okay," she tells him as she steps forwards and holds her wrists out. One of the henchmen a real one, obviously, steps forwards, grinning nastily. "Nope. Thumb cuffs. We ain't dumb. You're strong. No leverage with these." Stardust shrugs her shoulders and puts her hands together, letting him slip the metal cuffs over her thumbs while another henchmen covers him, and the other two point their guns at whoever seems threatening. Thankfully, the psychic confusion is dropped, and everyone looks like themselves again.

Stardust folds her fingers over the cuffs and lets herself be frogmarched to the back of the van, one of the henchmen holding a gun to her head. "Okay," she calls out to the van. "Now you let the horse target go."

After a few moments, the rear door of the van opens, and a boy of around 12 is pushed out. As he takes to his heels, Stardust unfolds her fingers and pulls her hands apart. There's a smell of burning shoe leather, and the henchman with the gun to her head screams and starts hopping. He's just had a handful of molten thumb-cuff dropped on his foot. Stardust half leaps, half flies into the back of the van, colliding with something with a loud >CRASH< and leaving the others to deal with the henchmen.

Shadowlite has posed:
Then, about a minute later, Michael has his suit slipped on, along with his trenchcoat... and portals himself out and onto a nearby rooftop.

Those below will see black arcs of lightning flit around a widening hole in space. Raven might recognize the black hole as coming from the man in black during the Times Square invasion.

Everyone else is 'treated' to Shadowlite stepping out of said portal, his trenchcoat flitting with the wind slightly, before he steps back, out of sight.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner blushes faintly as Colette winks at him, before he simply takes a small nod and equal breath, letting her go off with the enemy...but his eyes are fixed on them. Only when the little boy is freed and in good hands does he make his move.

In an instant, he bomb rushes forward, and he smashes right one of the henchmen....then attempts to smash into the van!

Because guys need to get taken out, and Colette needs to be let out right?

Two birds one stone!

Raven has posed:
    "So you're going to be a horse target?" she asks, brow raised. Her deadpan delivery makes this all the more intense, admittedly, because at once, it seems like she's about to lecture Colette, and then her next sentence breaks that all down. "I think being a horse target is illegal in most states."

    Colette's plan goes off without a hitch- as Raven had expected. It's sort of hard to get one past her in that regard, as well as the fact that she blatantly knows that Colette is a little too headstrong to let herself -really- be captured by someone like The Rube (Or whatever his name is.)

    Similarly, Rayner books it into the side of the van, and a henchman. "Okay." Raven replies, watching the more overt aggression take place. Her attention shifts to the pair of remaining henchmen, and these... These she makes sad. Very sad. Crushingly sad. They both begin bawling within their uniforms. They collapse to their knees and Raven calmly walks up to both, taking their weapons, one in each hand. She doesn't cuff them, because they're basically down for the count, reliving every childhood trauma, every depressing high school-era tragedy, and probably feeling inadequate in every way that one could feel so.

    It lacks the phrenetic, kinetic, and frantic energy of van-tackling, but it's still a very, very effective way to render someone incapacitated. This leaves one last henchman for anyone to get- that Raven assumes Rayner will make collateral damage, amidst the whining and crying about highschool sweethearts and middleschool bullies best left forgotten.

    "I should have picked a different emotion. I apologize you all have to hear this."

Stardust has posed:
It's not even a fair fight. Rayner's first victim is out for the count before he has a chance to start counting, and then he's tearing into the side of the van, which is frankly a terrifying sight for the remaining three henchmen.

  On top of that, the dramatic appearance of Shadowlite makes it look like the supers have reinforcements incoming. Dark, shadowy, scary reinforcements. It's not good for henchman morale.

On top of /that/, Raven.

Under normal circumstances the henchmen would probably only need to glance at spooky Raven on top of the rest of it before deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, but Raven has other things in mind, and for all their fear, they are simply too upset to think about running.

Stardust reaches through the hole Rayner has made in the side of the van, and peels back the paneling, helping to widen the hole. When it's wide enough, she comes through, dragging someone with her. The Rebus, captured! "I think we won," she says with a grin. As the wailing of the traumatised henchmen hits her ears, her grin fades. "Did... Raven. Did you... You've broken them. Were you... sarcastic at them?" she asks as she hauls the dazed Rebus out and dumps him on the sidewalk next to the others.

Well that would be the logical conclusion, of course. But Raven can sense something is not right. This Rebus is very, very confused. Someone has messed with his mind. He certainly /thinks/ he's the Rebus. But didn't the Rebus have red hair? This guy is dark. One of the three henchmen crying their eyes out has red hair though...

For all the face-palming The Rebus has elicited, that's actually a sneakily little trick. He might even have got away with it, if he was able to run rather than kneeling there blubbing like a baby.

Shadowlite has posed:
Out of nowhere, a black misty fist pops out of the ground... and punches all the henchmen and 'Rebus' in the face. Then, it disappears, fading back behind the Darkforce barrier.

Then, Shadowlite can be seen stepping into that black hole in reality again, before it winks out of existence once more.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner helps Colette out of the trashed van bfore he looks at Rebus. "Oh, he looks so peaceful." he sarcastically states as he watches the man weep like he just lost everything....which isn't wrong, mind you. Alas, he looks at Raven. ".....remind me not to piss you off." Given, he has a helluva lot of strong willpower in him...but he's never facaed Raven. Something he'd rather still avoid. He looks at all those on the ground.

"...yeah, I got nothing. This is just kinda sad." he says as he watches the cry-fest over here. Thheeeeen Shadowlite shadow punches all of them in the face. Which is priceless. He can't help but golf clap at that.

Raven has posed:
    Raven isn't entirely sure what to make of everything. Sure, the same effect could have been achieved by her being sarcastic at them, but it usually takes a little while as opposed to just forcing the sadness in. She kneels down, looking up at Colette and then down at the redhaired "henchman" of the set.

    "It's almost clever. Almost." she states, and because of that, Rebus has a new bad memory to weep over, about how a just-barely-post teenage woman in a hoody called him not-quite-smart. It breaks his little villainous heart.

    Standing up, Raven watches the mother of all Late Hits, and were she a referee, she'd have to call it. Being a snarky superheroine, though, she merely approves silently and does nothing to stop Shadowlite from leaving. Clearly, he's doing fine despite the demonic invasion he'd been caught up in, so that was good.

    "I'll leave a sticky note on the fridge the next time I visit the tower." she states, in response to Rayner. "I think we can call the police."

    Then, from the redheaded man on the floor, a sobbing, "I AM as good as the Riddler!"