A Hard Day's Night [IC]

[Avenger Assembled]

"No, it doesn't," agreed Jack with a small smile. Relieved to see her smiling too, he didn't so much relax as remove another layer of worry from around what passed for his soul. "And we will fool around in here...when you're feeling better." He reached down to stroke his hand along her cheek, then turned to run the shower. Hot water was soon cascading out of the high silver-cast metal, steam rapidly rising in the room. Jack evidently preferred his showers exceedingly hot. "I have the utmost faith in your capacity to recover. Even from...from all this." He turned and looked her way. "Does your family know you were missing? Do I need to call them while you're in here?"

[alderwitch]

"Oh, hell. Yeah." Taylor sighed and rubbed her eyes while she thought. It took a few seconds to extrapolate how many hours she'd been off of the radar. Roughly a full day, give or take, which meant that she'd probably missed a class or two. A truly excellent way to start the school year. "If you could call my brother, Jackson? He won't ask a lot of questions and he's used to running interference for me. He's the first one that mom calls anyways when I vanish for any length of time. That'll keep anyone from showing up at my apartment before I can clean up the mess."

She ran a hand through her hair. It was definately a sign of how very rattled she was after everything that she hadn't even thought of that angle until he mentioned it. "Could you do me one more favor?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Jackson," Jack agreed, "I'll call him." He thought fast, the lies coming with remarkable speed and accuracy. "I'll tell him I surprised you with a weekend up in Wharton and got you distracted enough you weren't paying attention ot the clock or the calendar. And our phones didn't work up there. Anything," he added in response to her second question. "Just tell me."

[alderwitch]

Taylor blinked at that but it was a good story. Remarkabally good, actually. Considering how flighty her family thought she was lately, Jackson would probably just be relieved. She tilted her head to the side and gave him a tiny smile, "I wouldn't be so quick to agree, if I were you. I know you don't get along with Ace or Stesha, but they should know too. They're the only ones likely to stop by my apartment. While I think the zealot will be spending tonight licking his wounds, I really don't want to risk it. You only have to call one of them. You could probably even have Dark Star reach Stesha. Thanks."

Taylor stretched up to kiss his cheek on her way to the shower. As far as she was concerned, the hotter the better when it came to showers. Especially on a night like tonight.

[Avenger Assembled]

Left with the choice between calling one of the most dangerous people he knew and the woman who he'd dumped and treated like a heel, Jack opted to call the dangerous antagonist without much hesitation. He left the shower behind as he heard Taylor step in, picking up his phone and dialing the contact number he'd acquired for Ace Danger. "Danger. It's Jack Faretti."

[angrydurf]

Ace picked up before the second ring with a snappy, "Ace Danger."

As Jack introduced himself Ace smiled a lazy smile and replied, "Well hello Jack." in a tone not at all in keeping with his generally antagonizing attitude. "What can I do for you?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Taylor's been attacked." Jack was trying to be cold, but Ace was sensitive enough to hear the emotion in his voice. "I've dealt with her attacker, but it's not safe to go by her apartment tonight. There may be someone else after her, or after the other Knights. She asked me to tell you, because she knows you know how to find everybody. She's all right now."

[angrydurf]

"Understood." Came Aces reply his voice cold and hard, in the background Jack could hear at least one voice offer complaint along with the soft sounds of dinner coversation growing quickly fainter as Ace began to move, "I'll see to it the others are alerted." He paused for a moment his voice softening "Is she hurt?" He asked quietly. His other hand had already sent a text to Elena telling her to alert the knights that someone or something might be after them.

By that time he was already on the elevator heading to the garage.

[Avenger Assembled]

"The man who attacked Taylor is Victor Harrow. A teenager with a magical weapon, associated with the Inquisition." Jack was not going to get into a lot of detail with Ace. "I did things to him. I doubt he'll be a threat tonight, but his organization may have sent him with friends. He's targeting magically oriented people in particular, so you and Stesha need to be especially careful since you associate with her. Not that I think people like that will look too closely when it comes to things like Scarab's psychic abilities or Dark Star's gravity powers, but you can't be too careful."

[angrydurf]

"I'll take that as a yes then." Ace said dryly. He didn't delve deeper into the grim heroes methods he knew well enough what he did to run of the mill scum this was likely to have been messy even by those standards. "The inquisition knows better than to opperate here under the nose of Eldritch." Though since jack wasn't in a sharing mood Ace left out the rumors of the arrival of a lone inquisitor cut off from his order. It was possible the young man had however seen fit to have Taylors apartment watched he would ensure no one else was caught in the fanatics trap.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Taylor's all right," said Jack, opening up a little despite himself. "She's resting with me now." He didn't like Ace, not even after this, but he was Taylor's friend too and deserved to know she was all right. "And you're right about the Inquisition. The last cell I heard about operating in the area got chased away when they tried tangling with Siren..." After we redirected them that way "but that was months ago. Harrow didn't know enough to steer me towards his handlers; he may have been an independent madman."

[angrydurf]

Ace was somewhat mollified by Jacks eventual explanation, "There have been rumors of an independant operator, front running theory is that he ended up here somehow after some cabal took out an inquisitor trianing facility. It seems Mr. Harrow may be the individual in question." He siad plainly offering up a portion at least of his knowledge on the matter.

Jack could hear as the elevator opened the destinct echo standard to most large underground parking facilities. "I'll poke around her apartment and make sure they don't scent onto anyone else." Ace said as he approached his car.

"And Jack," He said almost hesitantly, "Thanks for looking after her." Ace hung up before Jack could respond. Undoubtable Elena would be barging into his head in moments and he preffered as little distraction as possible when dealing with the ancient psychic.

[Avenger Assembled]

With Ace finished, Jack decided to be boyfriend enough to join Taylor in the bathroom to give her the news. He stepped in loudly so she wouldn't jump at his approach, as familiar with how to be noticed as he was with never being seen at all. "Hey, Taylor! Ace has the word, he's passing it along to the other Knights." He watched her through the fog on the side of the translucent shower door. "You think he'll call Stesha?"

[alderwitch]

Taylor was rinsing her hair for the second time when she heard the door open again. The rest of the battle had been easy to wash off of her skin, but trying to get several dunkings in that filthy barrel out of her hair took a bit more doing. Once she had the soap bubbles out of her face, she raised one hand to swipe a hand through the fog to look at Jack. "If he doesn't call Stesha, Dark Star will, I'm sure. I imagine Ace will call her, though. He's really quite fond of her, and he knows we're friends."

She turned to slip back under the spray to get rid of the rest of the shampoo as she added, "Thank you, for that. I wouldn't have worried but all he wanted out of me was information on who else I knew."

[Avenger Assembled]

"He hadn't tried this with anyone else, I know," said Jack reassuringly, calling through the water as he watched her bathe. "So we're safe as far as anyone else being tracked down through the Knights." He debated for a few moments, thought about the unhappy woman he'd only actually met a few times, and decided to take a chance. "I'll give her a quick call. Ace may not think to call her before he talks to the rest of the Knights, and Stesha's a lot weaker than any of us." He used the cordless phone to call Stesha from the bathroom door, so Taylor could half-hear him on the phone.

[Electra]

The phone rang three times before it was picked up, and this time Stesha answered with a curious "Hello?" rather than a snap. Well, this was a new apartment and she didn't have this number, so it was just one more random middle of the night phone call. She didn't sound tired though, appropriate enough for someone who didn't need to sleep.

[alderwitch]

Taylor ran her fingers through her hair under the water, combing out the tangles. She rarely wore it down, and it was getting longer than she usually kept it. Weighed down with water, it was past her shoulder blades and very thick. It took a while to rinse all the soap out.

"She was my first concern, yes. She's the most magically oriented of the individuals I know, well, except for myself I suppose, and if that man could take me down in under ten seconds, Stesha wouldn't have a prayer. I'd like to hope that if I'd been something other than naked and asleep, I'd have done better. I've never seen anything slice clean through my forcefield like that." Taylor whistled softly and finished rinsing her hair out and went quiet as Jack made the call.

[Avenger Assembled]

"He had weaknesses. Weak as anything in hand-to-hand combat if you take him unawares." Jack leaned against the wall, coming up with his version of events quickly. That reminded him, he'd need to call Taylor's brother when they were done. "Stesha, it's Jack. Taylor's been attacked and I'm checking up on all her friends. She's okay, but we're worried her friends might be in danger. Are you all right?" he asked her. His voice was brusque, but not unfeeling, though he certainly didn't hesitate to let her speak as he rattled through his short little speech.

[Electra]

Stesha wasn't exactly happy to be hearing from Jack, especially when she didn't even get the luxury to prepare before she picked up the phone, but any response she might have made to his voice was swept away by hearing what he had to say. "Is Taylor all right?" she asked immediately. "What happened? How bad was it?" After another moment, she responded to his actual question, even as she hurried to her bedroom to change out of her pajamas. "I'm fine here, everything's fine. Who attacked her?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"An insane religious zealot, targeting anyone with magic. We beat him together," he said gallantly, "but he was powerful, and dangerous. She was hurt, but now she's recovering. As far as we know the zealot didn't have any friends with him, but people like him are like terrorists; one may not know what the other is doing even though they're both taking orders from higher up. Their memories may not even be true. If you see a teenage boy with dark hair wielding any sort of magic whip, especially wearing religious iconography, you should get out of there right away."

[alderwitch]

Taylor laughed in the background as wiped water out of her eyes. She brushed away the newly reformed fog on the glass and mouthed, "Beat him together?" with a grin. It was sweet but such a load of bull. She did add, "Make sure she doesn't go to my apartment."

[Electra]

"Where is she?" Stesha asked, wriggling into a pair of jeans even as she hopped over to the window to see if any insane religious zealots had materialized on the lawn. "Does she need anything? She shouldn't have to be on her own right now if someone just beat her up." Her tone implied that he was dubiously acceptable company at best. Despite the durability and nigh-invulnerability most of the Knights seemed to try and project, Stesha didn't really think anyone could take a hard pounding and just get up and be okay.

[Avenger Assembled]

"She's not on her own, she's with me in my new place." Jack debated exactly what to tell Stesha, glancing over at Taylor, and reluctantly did what was probably the heroic thing. "If you want to come over, I can give you directions. She'd probably appreciate the company?" he asked, hazarding a question Taylor's way as they talked. This was a bad idea. Stupid ethics.

[alderwitch]

Taylor gave him an alarmed look and then glanced down at her nude body. She healed fast, but not that fast and she had no desire to let Stesha see what the people they fought were really capable of. She gave Jack a shrug and went to turn off the water. If Stesha was coming over, she'd just have to make sure everything was covered up and that gave her very little time if Jack owned any sort of plant life. Taylor snaked one arm out of the shower for a towel and said, "Five to ten minutes?"

[Electra]

On the other side of the phone, Stesha hesitated as well, before choosing to do what a good friend must, even if it meant bracing Jack in his den. At least she was sober this time. "Just your address and the floor you live on is fine, and if you have any plants in your apartment," she told him brusquely. "I'm going to get some things together, I'll be over in maybe ten minutes. Do you have a teapot?"