Interceptors; A 'Chance' Meeting [Jack/Blink] IC

[blink]

Nadia was quite relieved that her admission had seemingly gone well enough. In fact, contrary to what she had expected, none of the heroes here had seemed stuffy, uptight, or judgmental. She was quickly having to revise her opinions in short order. It also seemed that they knew how to handle themselves as well, which she had already been on the short end of the stick.

"Am not wearing dresses very often, is more for special occasions. If needed for wearing, then am doing best to mind looks. Should always have right tools for job, especially if in middle of chase," the last she said with an uncharacteristic sultry look. As quick as it came, it faded back into her normal countenance.

"There is more than one Jack?" she said considering his statement. If he was one suit, cups another, then there had to be wands and disks; or something close to that. She wondered if they were all as outgoing as Jack and if they had once been allies. Already she had a picture in her mind kind of like the flying Whalenda's from one of the Russian circuses that remembered. She stifled a giggle thinking of the swordsman in a sequined leotard and tights flipping from trapeze to trapeze.

Catching herself she said, "Is like a team thing? Can call on others for help?"

[Gizmo]

Jack make a weary grunt as he retrieved his shirt from the floor and slipped it over his head. "Ugh, yeah, there's four 'Jacks', one for each suit. Apparently when I got my powers I was automatically enrolled in some kind of ridiculous playing card themed fight club. Unfortumately, there wasn't exactly as orientation, so about all I know is that there's three other metas running around periodically trying to bash in either each others heads or mine."

Gathering up the discarded foils in one hand, he ticked off fingers on the other. "There's Jaci o' Cups, who is exceptionally attractive but a couple bungee cords short of an X-Games, if you know what I mean. She absorbs any damage and gets bigger and stronger. Coinpurse Jack is, pardon my language, a tremendous asshat. He's got probability control, which is appropriately obnoxious. Jakken Staff is just straight up coocoo bananas. He's all 'thy' and 'thou' and 'forsooth' and so on. He's a magic user, I guess." He scratched the back of his head and shrugged. "It's sort of hard to tell; all of our powers are kinda magic-flavoured, as far as tell."

The swordsman sighed. "It wouldn't be such a big deal, except that they're all at least as powerful as me and they're totally determined to win this 'tournament' thing they keep mentioning. I just tried more or less ignoring them at first, so they started putting people in danger to draw me out. It didn't really occur to me until just now, but they'd totally come after you guys if they thought they could use you as bait or something." He gave Nadia a grin. "Benefits of the redeemed criminal angle: no preexisting rogues gallery, huh?"

[blink]

As Jack pulled his shirt on, talking about the various other Jack's that seemed bent on killing him, she had to force herself not to stare or sigh as he finished getting dressed. He was quite fit, and it made for a most excellent show. Part of her wondered if that was all part of a calculated distraction for when they had sparred. Perhaps she'd have to try the same tactic some time, she wryly thought to herself.

Nadia winced slightly, "is having some of criminal families... upset. Not being happy for no longer doing of jobs. Stopping in middle of contract with men who is not liking 'Nyet' for an answer."

Thankfully, she had no one in her life that she was overly worried about. Yes, her father was in the city, but she guessed that anyone trying to place a hit on him would rue that day. While he was getting old, he was still in fantastic shape and he could still teach her a thing or two as well. Other than that, she had made few if any friends in the city, which was something that she was trying to rectify.

"If needing help, with other Jacks, is there to be helping when needed. Just ask."

[Gizmo]

Jack smirked as he balanced the retrieved foils over his shoulder and headed out of the training room, holding the door open for the Russian. "Heh, guess that's the trouble with teams, huh? Mo' metas, mo' problems. We should probably put together some kind of team 'people who want to do unpleasant things to us' list." The swashbuckler had become so used to basing his actions around the protection of those close to him, from rigorously protecting his secret identity to keeping people at a distance in his civilian life, that he found himself having difficulty adjusting to the idea of having friends who were at least as capable of taking care of themselves as he was. Having actual backup, he mused, would be pretty not-terrible.

His jaded expression softened into a genuine smile. "Still, shared trouble is lessened, yeah? Seriously, you're going to be getting calls at one in the morning, all, "Blink, some guy just made fun of my hair, come teleport him into a lake or something' and 'Blink, I can't figure out where the six goes on this sudoku'. Gangsters, though?" Jack made a cocky gesture, waking the issue away. "I am built for fighting gangster. The organized guys are way better than the 'bangers, 'cause they'll actually banter with you. The punks are just all swearing and making disparaging remarks about your mother. It's like, 'Guys, give me something to work with, here'." A look of mixed horror and amusement crossed his face. "Oh, man. Can you even imagine what kind of people All-Star has ticked off? We'll be getting primordial cosmic beings showing up, asking who broke the window of their ancient temple with this baseball."