Saturday Night At Morley's

[Avenger Assembled]

Unfortunately for Targette, the runaway-turned-supervillian was so distracted by her blast aimed at Jack that she failed to take into account Moira's iron grip on her head. She gave a sharp, guttural sound of surprise as Moira grabbed her around the head, arms flailing wildly as she was pulled right off her feet. She screwed up her face in concentration as Moira wrapped her arms around her, but was in far too much pain from Moira's adamantine grip to summon up her psionic powers!

At the sight of her lover in peril, Sidetrack gives a terrible scream and leaps into the air, ignoring Jack as she throws a glowing fist directly at Moira's face. To Sidetrack's horror, though, she swings wildly in her rage, so wildly that she clobbers Targette right in the face! "Nooo!" she screams as Targette's head snaps back, bleeding freely from the face now. "You are DEAD, do you hear me? You are both DEAD!" And with that, she grabs Targette and vanishes in a sudden flash of light, a minute before Jack dives for her, missing in a thoroughly ungraceful tackle as he just manages to avoid a faceplant. As suddenly as it began, the fight is over.

[Moira Morley]

Moira looked around for the two professional supervillainesses in disbelief. They were hopefully gone. Walking over to Jack she offered up a hand to help up her fallen comrade-in-arms. "Well, looks like we made some mortal enemies," she chuckles. Looking around to the room full of lifeless bodies, her momentary bit of sarcastic glee dropped into her stomach. "Jack, I've never dealt with this many unconcious people at once," she sighed trying to hide her fear with justified frustration, "Isn't there anything you can do to help them," she looked at him with a bit of both emotions, "Don't you have superbuddies or something?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack took the hand gratefully, his flesh cool against hers, but gave her a sharp look as she suggested calling in his friends. "My friends wouldn't help you," he said, something like pain in his voice. "They...jeez, I don't even think Stan called the police." He ran his hands through his thick hair, not quite able to look at her. "I am going to beat him when I see him again, that mammerjammer," he added with some heat. "I'm going to go find the police myself and get them back here, if you want to stay with your friends."

[Moira Morley]

Moira looked around at the lifeless bodies again. She couldn't help them and it was killing her. What if the kidnappers came back? What if the soldiers came back? She had to stay there. Though spending Saturday night with your friends is usually a lively event, she would have to be their protector. She nodded to Jack, "You had better come back," she said with a forced smile as she hopped back up on the side of the billiards table to have a seat, "and make it quick!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack ran, maybe faster than a man should, and disappeared into the night to summon help. Long minutes stretched by with Moira alone with her unconscious friends, before the police and paramedics arrived in a friendly, comforting swarm of lights and sirens. The paramedics, shocked at what they've found, gathered up the unconscious people as gently and quickly as they can, shouting to each other about signs of Kepamine and Trioxil poisoning in the unfortunates. The police, naturally, had many questions for Moira, both about her missing friends and the battered, bloody hi-tech mercenaries scattered on the ground like so many broken dolls.

[Moira Morley]

Moira rightfully claimed self defense against the soldiers. Giving her recollection of the story to the police she told the exact truth, but to hear her tell it these men were bloodthirsty monsters aiming for the destruction everything in in the place. She had to take them down or much worse would of happened that a cracked sternum and a snapped spine. She and Jack were the heroes. After all that she heard the words 'missing friends'. She paused for a second before she demanded to know who exactly was missing.

[Avenger Assembled]

"We had a man come into the station," replied the officer, giving Moira a cautious look. They seem to believe her story (really, who wouldn't believe someone so obviously trustworthy?) but there are still many, many mysteries surrounding it. "He said there'd been an attack at this bar and to come right away with squad cars and paramedics. Funny thing is, this guy managed to disappear right out of a station full of cops before we could get a statement from him. We were wondering if you might know anything about that."

[Moira Morley]

"I do believe he's like that," Moira smiled, "Here one second gone the next." She paused to recall the whole night with Jack How he was kind to Stephanie. How he stuck around even though his friends bolted, "Yeah, Jack Faretti, he's one of the good ones. You should give him one of those superhero awards or something." Then again, she wondered why she and them were the only ones left standing out of the pub. She then remembered about the other people around the bar, "Are they going to be OK," she questioned the officers and people who looked like they knew what they were doing, "These are my people. They're good folks, they don't deserve this."

[Avenger Assembled]

The police took a full statement from Moira, as is their wont, and then Officer Johnson (who seemed to have developed a bit of a crush on her) offered to give her a ride to the hospital to check on her friends. "We've seen cases like this before," he confided to her on the way there. "They go in, drug a whole bar or a homeless shelter, then take them away for God knows what. They turn up later, sometimes, usually having been guinea pigs for a new designer drug or implant." He shook his head, a depressed look on his face, but then brightens a little. "But they should be able to treat the drugs, I mean, that's never been a problem before. Without you and your, er, friend, though, we probably wouldn't have saved any of them."

[Moira Morley]

The news made Moira all the more accepting of the smitten officer's offer. None of her friends would become a lab experiment. Then again, the two supervillainesses swore death on her and Jack. Who knew what they had at their disposal?

Hopefully she would see more of Jack around Morley's. She had plans to thank him personally for helping her save her property. She made a mental note to find out more about the hero she had met.

[Avenger Assembled]

The doctors do indeed have a counteragent for the powerful sedatives used on the bar patrons, and by the time Moira leaves her friends' side early the next morning, they're already beginning to recover. Dosed through poisoned liquor, cigarettes, and even something in the air, it's easy to tell how everyone got exposed. That does leave open some awkward questions, though, like how exactly those who escaped the drugging weren't affected by the powerful toxin. Moira does get one last glimpse of Jack, standing in a hospital elevator, just before dawn when she steps out of Stephanie's room; the doors closing just before she can reach him. And when the elevator hits the ground, just as dawn rises in the eastern sky, he's gone.