94/Ravens and Fishnets

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Ravens and Fishnets
Date of Scene: 25 April 2017
Location: Atlantic City
Synopsis: Summary needed.
Cast of Characters: Zatanna Zatara, Raven




Zatanna Zatara has posed:
LATE LAST NIGHT

As Zatanna Zatara puts her cute little sedan into park for waiting at a red light somewhere in Atlantic City, an SUV pulls up next to her. The window unrolls, revealing a red-faced man who asks her jovially, "Scuse me - you wouldn't be THE Zatanna Zatara, would you?"

Zee looks over and smiles, a little wanly. "Sure am."

"Oh! Aye, what luck! Gertie, we've got amazing luck here. Miss," the red-faced man asks, "we're huge fans, and if you could sign our program -"

Zatanna is tired enough that the question of 'why did you wait for two hours after the show to ask?' doesn't occur to her. She pulls into the lot of the nearby convenience store, sweeps her hair back, checks herself in case of selfies in the mirror, and walks out to meet her fans.

"Hand!" says an older woman with glee. Her wrist is gripped, pulled inwards, and even as she manages to get out the first half of "Ezeerf sreggum," there is a red hot pain from within the darkness, slamming directly into her wrist. Zatanna stares in dull shock because even in that darkened car, she can see a dull red glow, and it's coming from a nail in her wrist...

Then everything fades into gray and tidal static.

NOW, UNDER GRAY SKIES

The third member of the Search Committee from the Church of Blood says, crossly, "Can you get the witch's arm off my shoulder? She's bleeding all over my khakis and it keeps opening up when you tell her to point." He's an American, in front. The older woman is driving. The red-faced man, who is also English, is sitting in the back seat with Zatanna.

"Oh, it's just a few drops, you sissy," says the red-faced man as he slices another piece off of a salami fresh bought at the pork store. "Ere you go," she says, pushing it with stubby fingers into Zatanna's slack mouth. "Just chew it up."

"You're going to confuse her if you keep doing all of this. We painted on the sigil, Nigel, it's not burned in, like it usually is," complains the driver.

"Right, you can't get a proper burn without consent. We'd just be putting a mark on a pretty girl for nothin, eh?" says Nigel.

(In Zatanna's field of vision, everything swims. She's floating in a bath. Is she going on a trip? Is that Tong, next to her? His accent is the tiniest bit like Tong's. Maybe they're going to the bay, she thinks. I haven't been to the bay in...)

"Anyway I drew the lines and it's got to be here somewhere," complains the man being bled on. "So pull in and park."

"Swallow," Nigel says to Zatanna. She does. Then Nigel continues. "Aye, park, and hope that SHE doesn't spot us out right away."

The driver pulls into the lot of the bleak shopping center anyway. Out here rents aren't ruinous. The place never took off; a storefront church sits where, probably, a supermarket or something was meant to. There's an abandoned Subway, and a furniture store that's never had its inventory completely cleared out.

"There," Nigel says, pointing the knife, the edge of it less than an inch from Zatanna's eyeball. She doesn't blink. But it's a brief thing, and the driver is skilled, even if there is little else good to say about her. "If this were Iraq or Afghanistan again and over, that's where she'd be."

"How do you know," complains the man with blood on his khakis.

"Don't see you having seen action, so why don't you shut your gob before I give the witch your tongue for dessert," says Nigel, genially. "Now give me your wrist, dear, and then you'll be on your way."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
AND PRESENTLY,

The SUV parks on the far end of the lot. The back door opens and out steps Zatanna Zatara. It isn't immediately obvious as her, because her face has been scrubbed clean of habitual makeup and she also has a slack-jawed sort of expression. She is wearing a loose T-shirt and yoga pants along with flats. The T-shirt is grayish and has some spattering of green paint around the midriff. And, of course, a dressed if heavily packed wound around her left wrist, making her hand sit a little strangely. The SUV creeps into another space as Zatanna stares into the middle distance, and...

Why am I here? Her brow furrows.

That's right, Zatanna thinks, looking at her wrist. That demon. It bit me. My friends bound it up. They're hunters. Demon hunters.

"I guess I should check it out," Zatanna says sleepily, before swinging one leg forwards and marching steadily ahead. "That furniture shop's the first place to look, innit," she repeats to herself.

Innit, Zatanna thinks.

Innit?

But whatever the motive, she is approaching what would in fact be a really great place to crash out when the weather isn't too bad.

Raven has posed:
    Raven isn't Raven today. She's Rachel today, just an orphan being held in the custody of the state until she achieves majority; a teenage girl whose ripped black shirt and jeans reveal flashes of exquisitely, even unnervingly pale skin (it borders on gray, but surely that's just an illusion of her black clothes, right?) criss-crossed by black lines suggesting she must be wearing a fishnet body stocking beneath; just a poor girl--it would be fair to call her destitute, actually--with no friends to pay her way to the rides, so she wanders around the deserted shops, the less human part of her soul taking some comfort in the abandonment and decay. There is a kind of romance to it, one that gives a hint of wistfulness to her otherwise impassive, expressionless face, on whose brow sits a red, pyramid-cut gem.
    Rachel hasn't been sleeping well lately. She keeps her mind shielded from her father, and that shield works both ways, so she can't tell what, exactly, is happening lately. She only knows she feels something at the edges of her awareness, like movement glimpsed from the corner of the eye, that could be a stalker or a shadow or anything in between. It's upsetting, and it's damaged her calm somewhat...but she is still iron inside, and she denies her fear as easily as she'd cast back any other emotion. She won't live afraid. If she wants to go out, then she will.
    You'll not find her in the abandoned Subway, or in the furniture store. In fact, it will be a bit of walking before you find her outside the church, looking up at it, thinking her private thoughts.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
In the car, the three humans pledged to Hell watch. They keep the air conditioner running.

"She's completely blasted," says Mr. Bled-on, who seems excitable about all of this. "She's just going to walk into a window and bang her head or something."

"Who gives a fart in a high wind about some snotty little witch," says the driver.

Nigel is watching through binoculars. "Ah, there she goes. Oh, I see what happened, she's behind those stupid little pillars."

Mr. Bled-on opts not to clarify the purpose of structural concrete elements because Nigel has shifted into Zatanna's old seat and is examining a couple of black hairs that she left on the seat cushion, now that the action has, so to speak, paused.

OUTSIDE

Zatanna walks towards Rachel. It is a broad expanse and she isn't making a lot of noise, even if she's not exactly stealthy. Inwardly, Zatanna thinks: My stomach feels like wet garbage... is this a hang over? I am so hung over, aren't I?

Her wrist throbs once. The throbbing gets stronger as she gets nearer. Now she's close enough that she only has to raise her voice to be heard.

"Hi!" she calls ahead. Then she says in a tone of recital, "Are ye the scorned and long-forsaken?" It's like she's reading off a cue card.

What?

"Do you know where there's a bathroom?" Zatanna adds, more slowly but without that strange cadence. She keeps walking forwards.

Raven has posed:
    By its very nature, surprise is the hardest emotion to fight down, but the mental reflexes Rachel has developed are sharper than razor blades, and only a twitch of her eyebrows, so quick it might be invisible, betrays how she feels about being asked that first question. To nearly any other eye, her face is calm and her shoulders are tight, but no more than usual. "Probably in the church here," she suggests in a voice that's...well, not even raspy; it's creaky, like its owner hasn't spoken in weeks. "They have to let you use it. City ordinance. Otherwise you might pee on the street." She climbs the short, shallow stairs to the door and pulls it open for you, as anyone might while close to a door you want to pass through.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna approaches Rachel as she steps up, as she opens the door.

As she gets closer she is visibly nursing her injured wrist, clutching it to her chest as she grimaces. It gets bad enough that she pales visibly along the way, stopping at the foot of the stairs and staring downwards.

Breathing in and out, she says again, not looking up, in the almost exact same tone, "Are ye the scorned and long -"

"Ow! Shit," she groans.

IN THE CAR

"I knew using the shard was a bad idea," says Mr. Bled-on. "You should have just LIED to her."

"He knew what he was doing and I agreed," says the driver. "This is the all in one. All she's got to do is bump it against the little bitch and we've got it all done."

"Aye," says Nigel. "And you voted with us too, you little gobshite."

"I'm feeling really attacked in this situation right now," says Mr. Bled-on, mostly to himself.

"You want to see attacked?"

BACK OUT AT THE CHURCH

"City... What city is this?" Zatanna says, looking upwards. Her expression is animated if pained for a moment, but then it's as if the strings got cut and she repeats, "Are ye the scorned and long-forsaken?"

Raven has posed:
    Rachel's empathy is running at peak capacity; much of her focus is devoted to reading the shape of your mind, even if she can't read its contents. She can think of two choices: provoke you and try to draw you into the church, or try to keep reaching out to the woman beneath the curse (or the programming, as people these days would probably think of it). She feel Rachel slipping away, feels Raven coming up in her place, her coming marked by her mind falling cold and silent, and for right now fights it down. She can still think and still act. That's enough for the moment.
    She makes the decision that lets her stay Rachel for a moment longer. "We're in Staten Island. I'm pretty sure every city, state, and government has disowned it," she says wryly, hoping to get a laugh. "Come on in, ma'am." That last is a sudden intuition: almost no woman likes being called 'ma'am.' It might jar you.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
What is going on in Zatanna's mind is like seeing something through a thick pane of green glass. She is confused inside of it. But there is the sense that the confusion is strong - but not a conscious sort of strength. The haze on her is strong.

It's probably connected to the green paint.

There is no laugh, though her lips do quirk. Then she frowns.

The parked SUV, in the distance, backfires or something.

IN THE SUV

"Come on, Cam," says Nigel, raising his hands in the air and grinning as best he can. Smoke rises from the barrel of the .45 in his hand. His eyes are flinty but he's sweating now.

'Cam' is holding up a circular medallion. A glyph in a circle on it is glowing green. The bullet has struck the glyph dead center, and that glyph seems unharmed. As the bullet falls into the SUV's upholstry, Cam says, "Give me the gun."

"The S," begins Nigel.

Cam snaps, "I don't give a hot shit about the SAS! We don't even WORK for any country on this dying planet any more, ASSHOLE. GIVE ME THE GUN."

"Steady now," says Nigel.

The driver is still clutching at her ears.

BACK OUTSIDE

Zatanna's face gets ashen again despite that moment of struggle. Frustration has been planted in the soil of her mind and the crop is growing. Will it grow fast enough?

But now her eyes gleam slightly differently. "I'm kind of unsteady," she says. Her bandaged hand comes up.

"Give me a hand up." Her hair falls partway down to veil one eye, but it doesn't even make her blink.

Raven has posed:
    Rachel is very inexperienced. She's never heard a gun except for the fake sound effects on TV and movies, and she'd never in a million years guess that impotent pop is what a real gun sounds like.
    Inexperienced, but not stupid. She's never heard a sentence as weird as "give me a hand up" spoken without so much as a "please" to the stranger being asked the favor, and she knows something inside you has changed. Alright, it's time to quit playing. She has a moment to regret scaring you, then releases the church door with her hand, taking a step back to block it with her foot so it stays wide open (probably an unnecessary precaution, church doors are meant to be open to invite people in, but Rachel has never set foot in a church without intense discomfort, so she doesn't know things like that). She needs her hands free to form claw-like gestures pointed low at you, and her eyes are replaced by flares of black anti-light as she chants her mantra, heedless of anyone who might see her: "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Black anti-light flashes from beneath you and your world heaves as a large, wide block of the cement you're standing on rises up with you still on it, flying toward the church door, meaning to deposit you inside, where Rachel is pretty sure the demonic influence you're under will be weakened.
    Now all she can do is hope you're too slow to jump off before you cross the threshold.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
There is a twisted look on Zatanna's face for a moment even as that confusion in her green-glass-bottle of a heart is mingled with something else. Before that then the cement cracks beneath her and she spills forwards, tumbling ahead as she is hurled, more or less bodily, into the church.

Here's something eerie; her left arm sticks out, like a compass needle, and her fingers splay out like spider's legs as she briefly passes at closest approach to Rachel. But it's brief. Because then she hits the entrance and goes flying down the pew, landing on her belly without grace, skidding, and rolling up while clutching at herself.

"Hh - /gyah/ - kgh-" That part just seems like legitimate physical pain.

IN THE SUV

"Now just be easy, Ruby," says Nigel. He has his knife in his hand again. There's blood on it, just a little.

Cam has his hands up, the gun held in one. "We're all on the same side here."

Ruby, the driver, the older woman, holds up that amulet, giving the two younger men a flat glacial stare. "You're both a bunch of piss-ants. You both put your seat belts on because I need your virgin blood to stay in your bodies for now."

Cam glances at Nigel, who grins sheepishly. There are two latches of seatbelts, a lowering of a parking brake, and -- then the engine stalls out.

Ruby curses.

BACK IN THE CHURCH,

Zatanna rolls over slightly more, gasping for breath. "Who in all the hells...? Jesus!! What did they do!?" She struggles into a seated position and starts trying to unwrap the dressings on her arm. "Who ARE you?!" she calls to Rachel. Her shirt has hiked up somewhat; a painted-on glyph in some kind of unsavory shade of green has smeared substantially.

Of course Rachel has another problem, which is that that SUV is now driving over towards the church. Driving is actually kind of the wrong word: it is /accelerating/, approaching highway speeds as the driver aims to run her down!

Raven has posed:
    No one ever accused the Church of Blood of recruiting the brightest people. Driving an SUV up an incline toward a woman who has a telekinetic grip on a large chunk of cement is not tactically wise. Rachel sweeps her hands down as if clawing at the air, and the floating cement chunk obeys, crashing down on the SUV's hood. It just isn't big enough to wreck the engine, but it does cause the artificial rock to explode with the impact and spray an obscuring mist cloud of dust and gravel into the windshield while Rachel leaps inside the church door, having to trust the building's walls will help stop the SUV's momentum. The instant she's inside, her demon-half is screaming in outrage (if not with real pain), and she feels its powers fading on the sanctified ground. She's not helpless, far from it, but she's not going to be able to lift another block of cement like that for a while.
    Too late to worry about now. All the other options were worse. Rachel ignores the screaming and runs toward you as the SUV's driver-side wheels come off the steps and its front bumper crashes hard into the wall near the doorjamb, where the most studs are closely packed. No more SUV for them. Lovely! That should give her the few seconds she needs to grab you by the hand and pull you up, insisting, "Come on, we have to get out of here!" Her eyes have lost that black flash, at least. That's nice.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The SUV is hit by a floating piece of concrete, which also causes the airbags to burst inside, especially when the car ends up hitting the steps leading up to the church hard enough to smash the headlights and dent the grill. What happens to the inhabitants isn't immediately clear.

INSIDE THE SUV

The sudden impact sends the knife flying out of Nigel's hand and directly into Cam's throat. "Uh!" he says. Cam is also apparently surprised although he articulates this in a more, let's say, ARTERIAL way.

OUTSIDE THE SUV

There is blood on the inside of the windshield.

In the church, Zatanna has gotten her wrist unwrapped and is looking down at it with some horror. A red spike of what looks like dully heated iron has been driven in through her wrist, and blood drips out from the space between the bones. Now that it is exposed there is a hiss and some smoke rises from it, though not enough, it seems, to stop the leaking. Zatanna swallows several times, staring at it.

As Rachel gets close, she says with sharp authority, "No!" as she pulls herself back. Her left hand reaches towards Rachel imploringly, and Zatanna has to pull it back, struggling with herself as her back hits the floor of the church. "No - ngh--" She sticks her arm underneath a pew. This is probably even more confusing.

Until she speaks with authority. "Annataz evael lian!" she states. There is a loud THUMP and several smaller ones, part of the pew splintering and the piece of infernal metal flying up, ricocheting off the rafter, and ending up embedded in the suffering ankle of Jesus Christ, hanging over the altar. (Jesus seems used to this.)

"H... hah! OK!" Zatanna says, bringing her left hand around to take Rachel's.

She screams horribly a second AFTER she gets pulled up to her feet. There is blood.

IN THE SUV

The 'collision' with the front steps had stunned Nigel. "Oogh..." The retired SAS man shakes the fog from his head, saying as he does, "Cam... you fecking prick, are you killed or not?"

Ruby speaks, shrill but now with authority. "The virgin has been slain and the talisman has been fed. The power awakens within me. Take your weapon and attend me, son of Albion, and embrace destiny."

Ruby turns her head, eyes glowing green, and raises her own left hand, now coated in the twisted, smouldering lead of that talisman. "All for Trigon."

"All for Trigon," Nigel says, though he sounds sick about it.

Raven has posed:
    Well, there's no help for it. Rachel grabs the hem of her shirt and tugs sharply upward, peeling it off so fast it turns inside out, not that it will matter much longer; after today, this shirt will be ruined. She is indeed wearing a fishnet garment beneath, at least a long-sleeved shirt of the stuff; though she's obviously a teenager and therefore not yet fully formed, there's nevertheless sharp definition in her musculature, which is damned odd. But enough of that. Rachel shoves the shirt into your good hand and says, "Bandage it, but on the go! We have to get out of this building!"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
There is no action from the cultists for the moment. ("This darkling power... eeh heh heh!")

Zatanna takes the shirt and pushes it to her wrist, staggering afterwards. "Thanks," she says, not remarking on that outfit. She bleeds directly into it as she breathes with a quick, staccato rhythm while turning to head -- well, there's an emergency exit there. "Come on--"

After the door is hip-checked or otherwise pushed open, Zatanna seems to have gotten herself together enough to say, in that same commanding tone, "!elohw eb tsirw" After this she staggers a pace, and says with a peculiar note of giddiness, "Ha ha! Boy if I'd said that a little differently, this might have been stigmata. Wouldn't Sister Apollonia just --"

She catches herself. The empathic feeling boiling off of her now has only traces of that green-glass suppression, with concern spiking upwards. "Who are they? Who are YOU?" But at least she doesn't sound scared.

Raven has posed:
    "The ones trying to kill me and the one trying not to get killed," Rachel snaps, taking your good wrist (though they're both good now; just enough time to mourn her shirt) and pull you along as she runs toward the first door she sees. She's never been in a church, can't even guess the floor plan, but any room with a door to close in front of the cultists and a window to jump out of will do. You have magic, but the cultists probably do too, and you never know if they have a counterspell ready. Best to be outside, where both of us can be at full strength.
    The first door she picks is lucky. It's someone's office, the deacon's or priest's or pastor's or whatever the title is for this church's denomination. Rachel pulls the door shut behind her as the empowered cultist screams and points out at you both, thumb flicking the lock. It's a useless gesture, but the only hope is it costs them more time to get through than it cost her lock it at all. The window is small, but not too small for a woman to get through...but broken glass will be a problem. There can't be any left in the frame.
    Magic, then.
    Rachel growls her mantra again, needing every bit of energy she can summon: "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Her demon-half is happy to lash out at the church, to desecrate it, and not just the window but its entire frame blows outward. Good enough. The window opens out onto an alley leading to the dock, which...well, that has its own dangers, but it could be worse. "Jump!" she commands, and then the door shudders in its frame. If you take time to argue, they'll break through.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"You said that again," Zatanna observed, breathing heavily. She doesn't have time to remark further because a door just got kicked down. ("Praise Trigon," comes the amplified old-lady voice of the newly empowered 'Ruby'. "And curse the sheep god of the Nazarene!")

"Well that's fifty years in purgatory," Zatanna says, glancing over her shoulder, still woozy. Footsteps come - WHAM, the door shudders.

Zatanna, in a word, leaps out through that window, into that alleyway. "Now what," she breathes, even as there is a splintering sound inside of the building and another more incoherent screech. Looking left, looking right, then looking at Raven, her eyes and soul betray anxiety, fatigue, but at the very least not terror. That much is spared her today.

Where did Nigel go? That is a mystery, and probably not a very urgent seeming one.

Raven has posed:
    Raven's eyes dart back and forth. She has time for only one scan of the alley, takes your hand, and starts running, hoping to get out onto the open street, hoping to get away from this church. As she runs, something...odd happens. Her clothes seem to melt, to fade into her skin, to be replaced with a a dark blue rob with leg slits so high and wide up each side its bottom half is basically a loincloth; a long, dark blue cloak flows out behind her like wings, held together by a wide, ruby red clasp at the shoulders, its hood casting a beak-shaped shadow over her face; long, dark blue gloves like opera gloves cover her arms; long, dark blue, thigh-high boots with flat heels grow over her. Rachel has been put firmly away: it's Raven now, and Raven can deal with this...but she'll be stronger further away from this church!
    Raven doesn't spare you a glance as she runs. She's pretty confident you've seen weirder today. Soon you're at the mouth of the alley, opening onto not the main street but a small, narrow one, not much better than an alley itself. Still, it's something.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Sehtolc krow," Zatanna says as she's led forwards, although she does not have time to remark further, beyond shifting to the side a bit to avoid getting struck by flapping cloak. The top hat may seem like a little much when Raven finally gets a glance again, but who doesn't make iffy decisions at times?

"Can you tell me anything about these people or are we in full on running-away mode?" Zatanna says as the narrow little street spreads out in front of them. She looks up, she looks down, but nobody is around. She slouches against a wall for a moment, because there is no further smashing from the church they had just decamped from. Not yet.

Thinking aloud, she says, "They must have gotten me right outside of that burger shop... I told them it was awful karma, but no, Zee, we have to have a giant beef bomb, come on, we're tired of food with flavors and spices." This is really more of an internal muttering, and she is able to keep going despite this interval of complaint.

"Oh," she says, perhaps too late. "Zatanna. Let's shake hands later though."

Raven has posed:
    Raven glances back at you after fifty harrowing feet down the road behind the church, and stops. "Raven," she greets, voice still flat. "I should have recognized you. Can you fight? They're demon-worshippers and they're here for me. I don't know what powers they have this time." She's whipping her head around as she talks, conning all vantage points as rapidly as possible; her empathy is stretched out and grasping now, for what early warning it can give her of hostile intent. She didn't hear that thing burst through the window frame or wall, which means they're sneaking up on us now.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Probably some," Zatanna says. She looks rather sallow despite the stage makeup she has down. "I might throw up on you, though."

The empathy snakes out, and...

There is a presence nearby but it is hard to nail down exactly. It's slippery; if Zatanna is a candle (by way of comparison) this feeling is like someone just tipped a candle over and dribbled the wax into a cup of cool water. Except the wax isn't solidifed, it keeps rotating around... However, a glance up reveals that there IS no Ruby-demon smashing down from the heavens (i.e. the gray crack of sky above the alley).

"I like the name. Do you have a car around here or anything?"

There is a sudden roar of an engine - but it passes; someone at the cross street with a lousy muffler. Or an after-market one that's meant to be that way. False alarm. (Probably.)

Raven has posed:
    Zatanna is not exactly Wonder Woman in terms of the superhero pantheon, but to Raven, a magician? Receiving praise from you is distractingly pleasant. "I usually teleport, but after being in that church, I don't have that power," she explains sharply. "Do you want to steal one?" She'd rather stay and fight, even with her reduced powers, but there's you to think of. Zatanna Zatara is not dying on her watch.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"I'd rather not," Zatanna says, with a grimace. "I ended up in a sorcerer's duel on I-80 out west once. That wasn't fun."

"Where are we, Staten Island? Shit," Zatanna huffs. "OK so I can't call for a ride. We could get a car but then they'll probably just end up dealing with them on the road again. I can smell the ocean but... the whale road is going to put our butts out in the open for like half an hour. Can these cross running water?"

The question becomes a little academic. Something makes a distinct and subtle 'tang!' on one of the overlooking roofs - as if something just struck a roof HVAC unit or similar piece of equipment. Zatanna looks up, but her reactions are not fast enough to snap up.

For a moment, though, perhaps Raven's are. Up there is a beefy Englishman who is setting up a rifle. He has not - yet - leaned into the direct line of sight. But the up shot is that he doesn't have a sorcerous talisman on him.

Raven has posed:
    Rage. This is not anger; this is rage, a rage older than time, a raving, unstoppable imperative to seize this mortal, this wretch, this finite speck of nothing that dares affront Raven of Azarath and rend him for his temerity; to show him true power by ripping him apart atom by atom and sending his bleeding soul into the void where it will diminish forever but never die, suffering past the concept of time's ability to describe it. It is an unstoppable imperative...but Raven does stop it. The monks of Azarath trained her well; her focus is unquestionable, and her anger reaches out like a hand to envelop the chunk of bricks directly under the shooter in a black anti-light aura. The chunk of bricks split from the roof with a cloud of red dust as her telekinesis swings like a titanic fist throwing a straight punch at his chest. Raven even has the cold presence of mind to aim high, to break his ribs and make holding a rifle impossible.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna sees a streak of black(?) light snap overhead and the man, Nigel, is struck right square in the chest. There's a huge noise like a transformer exploding as all the cartilage in his chest 'pops' like a giant cracking his knuckles; he topples forwards, cursing, doubling over.

Falling! He was three stories up.

"Wollip ot etercnoc!" Zatanna says, and a chunk of the road turns into a very comfortable looking expanse of foam which he does not quite land on. It probably kept him from shattering a bone, but Nigel's immediate response is to cough bloodily.

Zatanna looks over her shoulder at Raven. She doesn't seem to be judging.

"OK, you," she tells the man, stepping towards him. This might be a mistake.

Raven has posed:
    Judgment could only be further from Raven's mind if you were to physically dig it out of her brain with a power drill lobotomy. Her hands are up in an arcane warding gesture--arms crossed over her chest, hands curled into claws with the fingers in unnatural positions--as she pads softly forward just a step behind Zatanna, violet eyes flicking every which way. She has no problem yielding control of this situation to the elder magician and general hero of magic. Surely Zatanna knows best!

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna would feel old if she was thinking about this.

She takes a breath to say something and then Nigel moves, powering through his multiple broken ribs to grab Zatanna's ankle and yank it out from under her, swinging his arm with a pained look but a crude efficiency. As she falls he raises up her leg, even as there's an "uff!" from Zatanna hitting the pavement.

Nigel got a knife out of his jacket somehow. He gives Rachel a leering look, not laden with supernature but perhaps showing the flinty-eyed heart of humanity. The blade tip gets stuck up against the inside of Zatanna's leg, if not actually into it yet. "Alright, love, here's how it's going to"

He misses a step from this. This is probably partly from his own heavy injuries but Zatanna having just driven her fist into his solar plexus is probably related to it.

Help might be good here though: he DOES still have a knife pretty near a major artery. But not for long?

Raven has posed:
    Raven was watching for this, and even if you hadn't punched him, she's pretty sure she would have gotten the knife. She makes a gesture weirdly like shooting a finger gun at the knife (except her fingers are all apart, in a pose like a bird's claw) and the knife turns black, the dark aura surrounding it somehow making the knife's details more apparent. Raven tugs, and the knife flies from his injured hand to bury itself three inches deep in the nearest concrete wall. Even if extracted, that particular knife will never hold a point again, and its cutting edge isn't worth salvaging either. All this she does as she flies toward the cultist, feet never less than six inches from the ground, to deliver a field goal kick to a face that will need steel pins to repair his cheeks. Confident he's done this time, Raven bends over at the waist to offer Zatanna a hand up.
    "Sorry about that."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The knife flies into a wall and Nigel is given a kick in his head, which, honestly, is probably something he has coming to him. "Buh," he mumbles, his grip weakening enough for Zatanna to kick free. She rolls onto her side, well away from him, and keeps a close eye upon him.

"What are you apologizing about?" Zatanna then says, with a sort of half-snorted laugh. Accepting the hand, she rises upwards, balancing for a moment. She keeps her attention on the guy but he at least seems done. He's clutching at his face.

"So that just leaves one of them, I guess." Brushing off her white gloves, she looks to Raven. "Where do you think she'll come from?"

Nigel keeps clutching at his face. There are little moans. Zatanna has little sympathy.

Raven has posed:
    Raven looks at you. She can't just come out and say 'Because you're Zatanna, you CAN'T screw up, which means you getting grabbed must be my fault' without sounding like a total idiot, so she just shakes her head and follows your change of subject. "If we're lucky, she got stigmata in the church and is bleeding out, but...probably not." Zatanna Zatara is asking her opinion! Raven shuts out the fangirl and focuses hard on the question, but she has no answer, and the issue is too important to fake it. "I don't know. We should get out to the streets. She might be taking hostages right now, or just killing people for blood sacrifice. Unless you can make him talk?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Yeah... that's a little too easy," Zatanna says. She closes her eyes to fight a sick wave of fatigue inside of her, but fortunately Raven isn't looking right at her right now.

"Good thought. Come on, buddy, it's time for you to tuo ti tips!" Zatanna says, and then Nigel looks up at both of them with huge fearful eyes and, in a single moment, does.

'It' as it turns out is not actually the facts or the evidence as Zatanna had intended, but magic can at times be twisted. Nigel, who is a large and fat man but basically a normal human in any case, ends up spitting up -- it's not clear what it is exactly; it resembles a bat or some featherless predatory bird, but the skin is grayish-green and leathery, and whatever fluid clings to it like an amniotic baptism is not blood at all. It stinks like a chemical plant. It's steaming hot.

It rolls on its side and speaks because it is that woman from before. Zatanna's eyes bug out as Ruby speaks: "Saved me some TIME! Now come along, girl!" Ruby's left... wing? grasper? is luminous with darkling power, which reaches forwards towards Raven. "Come along to your FATHER!"

Raven has posed:
    Raven's powers depend on emotional control, but surprise is the hardest emotion to control by its very nature; it is a psychic bullet coated in Teflon, piercing armor with ease. Raven is shaken by this...but the process of barfing up a live bat takes time, and it's time enough to get some of her power back. She yells at Zatanna, "Get back!" and whizzes backward away from the thing, unable to conjure any power for offense or defense but at least able to get away from that...thing until she can compose herself. She's already getting her control back. She's actually pretty good at this.
ut what about Zatanna?

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna is left there to be rent asunder! As the creature that was once Ruby wheels on her, Zatanna stares right into the barrel of death, and then points a white-gloved finger at her.

"Didn't your mother tell you it's not polite to POINT? TR--"

"Nope," Zatanna says, before shouting louder, "Secalp hctiws"

"IGON FNGWAHTRA!" Ruby declares, hurling a bolt of bedevilment right down into Nigel, who - well, we can aver that he's not only really dead, he's truly most SINCERELY dead.

Zatanna is standing right where Ruby was. She runs after Raven, eyes still wide. "Can you bind it?!"

Raven has posed:
    "I'm going to have to," Raven grits through her teeth. Whatever Ruby is now, it's way too easy to imagine her swelling up to another, less manageable size and doing terrible things to too many people. There's only one thing for it: she told you earlier she didn't have the power to teleport you, and that...wasn't totally true. She was saving that power for this. She can't let Ruby get away. People who get away can carry messages.
    Raven's cape flares and she releases her soul-self, an immense raven whose wingspan could blot out the sky, its body made of that same black anti-light and looking weirdly two-dimesional because of its inability to convey depth. Yet the thing must have some kind of substance, for its claws dart out with the nauseating speed that reminds you birds are the living descendants of dinosaurs and seize Ruby's body in both, clenching hard. Then, they start pulling in toward Raven, toward the impenetrable mass of blackness where Raven's body used to be inside her cloak, a void above while her cowled head floats. Ruby won't die in there, but she will go somewhere she won't enjoy at all unless she has another card up her sleeve.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Unfortunately for Ruby, she is a human soul who has been ignited by her fell dedication to Trigon and has begun the metamorphosis into something greater - yet lesser - but these are not the bruja who can make a woman into a bird from her head alone. This is someone who probably always leaves Fox News on in their house at a high volume.

The binding is struggled against - but the blackness engulfs Ruby, pulling her inwards. It becomes clear from the creature's screeches, its screams, its struggles, that it realizes quite clearly that it is not the senior partner in this particular tennis match. Soon enough - almost an anticlimax - she vanishes.

And she is gone.

Ish.

Zatanna breathes heavily in response. For a few seconds there is only silence.

Raven has posed:
    If you were capable of entering Raven's mind--and once you feel better, you very well might be--you would perceive it as she does: she's imagined it to be a great void, as black as the depths of outer space, lit by those stars she has placed there (they never waver in place, and are proof of the discipline she holds over her mind), with long, thin strips of rock twisting semi-organically through it, buoyed by the lack of gravity. This mindscape is enormous, boggling the mind to consider. It is the barrier of silence she's built around the inner galaxy of her emotions, where the planets there are restless and malign, like the Great Old Ones in a Lovecraft story.
    That is where Ruby goes. She'll feel neither heat nor cold, hunger nor satiation; she has no ability to move in the absence of atmosphere or gravity. She will not hear her own voice if she screams. She'll just exist as a mote in Raven's mind, trying to swim toward its borders and never moving until Raven releases her.
    It will be a while before that happens.

Raven has posed:
    Raven's cloak billows around her and settles; when it's done, Raven's body is back. Her face remains impassive; if she's ashamed of this, it doesn't show. Ruby became a demon; Ruby is now part of the legion; Ruby is part of her demon now. It doesn't pile on as much as you'd think. She turns to you and asks, "Are you okay? How's your wrist?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"My wrist," Zatanna says - she decides it's simpler to raise her arm, as if to demonstrate there's nothing up her sleeve. Ha! No there is something up ehr sleeve. The patch of clean flesh where, presumably, Magic had its way stands out against the faint grime of, probably, being the captive of these people for a while.

"See? All good. It aches a little."

Somewhere, Ruby screams.

"Are /you/ okay," Zatanna then says with more effort. Not fearful effort; fatigue effort.

Raven has posed:
    "I'm fine," Raven said, which is true. She pauses, then decides to go for it: "It's a pleasure to meet you, Zatanna. You're a legend in the circles." She grips the edges of her cloak to pull it back and reveal her left side: in the place where her dress and and glove leave her shoulder and upper bicep bare, and where her boot and robe leave her thigh showing, there's fishnet over her pale skin, as if she's wearing a body stocking of some kind. "I wanted to pay homage to you," she explains, a bit defiantly. Defiant of what? Her own shy embarrassment, most likely.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna looks on in momentary astonishment - her expression is probably not the best place to look here. Physically her face is in the zone of 'dull surprise'. Emotionally the surprise and a touch of embarrassment is there. And flattery.

"You pull it off really well," she says, adjusting her top hat with a little half-laugh.

"I don't know if this is part of my own legend," Zatanna says then, looking towards the rapidly eroding remnants of Nigel, "but I have this incredibly strong feeling about getting a dosa and a quart of tea inside of me and then sleeping for a week. If you want to come with me, on this journey, Raven - I'd welcome you."

Raven has posed:
    Raven is about to say something wry about being invited to sleep with you for a week, when she suddenly remembers, or maybe a better word is realizes, that she just basically flashed you, pulling back her cloak like that to show you her thigh. What must you think of her?! She blushes, hard (which with her pale skin doesn't add up to much, admittedly) and she can only hope the natural creak in her voice covers the crack it suddenly develops as she agrees, "Tea sounds NIce. Is there somewhere here you like?" She clears her throat, centers herself as best she can, and does her best to roll on: "And thank you for saying so. No one wears it like you, but..." She trails off as if in a linguistic shrug, while mentally cursing herself. 'You're doing it again! Stop flirting with Zatanna Zatara!'

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna laughs a little, sweeping her hair back with one hand. If she reacted to being 'flashed' it's muted. Indeed she doesn't seem to be picking up on the flirting at all, but maybe that just means Raven is too small time for her to notice? Or perhaps it means that she's not interested? Or that she's disgusted by Raven and her dark, demonic aura, her off-hue skin, her demonic enemies? Zatanna gives no sign.

"Well, not in Staten Island," Zatanna says. "But now that I can take a moment, I think I have it in me to make one good zap... It's easier if you don't have to take it in a hurry."

She extends a single hand to Raven. "Trust me?" she says, a little black wand appearing in the other hand.

Assuming she does, Zatanna deep-breathes and gathers herself - Raven can probably feel the leisurely coalescing of energies - before declaiming, "Asod Alawabbad Inahc ot nevar dna annataz!"

The world jerks and shimmies, like someone did a hasty edit of a film break with paste, and suddenly they are in Gotham City directly in front of -- well it's actually a similar sort of strip mall, which is kind of funny, all things considered. But this one is much healthier. A portly Indian man falls over, having just unlocked his front door.

"Miss Zee!"

"Chani I need you to - oh it is lunch time?" Zatanna says, brightening. "Wonderful. Here, let me help you up."

AND SO, Raven learns - if she dares - the joy of Indian vegetarian cuisine.