The Virtue of Villainy

[Jays]

The Twin Shade restaurant was nice, but that was the extent of what one could say about it. Situated in North Capitol Street on a less than busy neighborhood, its proximity to Downtown kept a reasonably constant mix of locals and tourists heading its way, and it was far enough of a walk from anything interesting to make them hungry right at its doorstep. It was as if whoever opened the place had planned it. No, the restaurant wasn't exclusive, or even particularly high-end. The attempt to appear as such would easily make any proper critic laugh to death, but there wasn't any critic around, and the act amused the locals, sometimes even tricked tourists. So it was that the oddity that was the Twin Shade restaurant persisted, average but not seedy, easily packed but not popular. A perfect location for...certain types of reunion.

When the man in gray stepped through the threshold, he found a warmly lit space big enough to fit fifty diners all at once, but decorated to be cozy and close. The crowd tonight was sparse, a few couples here and there, some lone diners, 4 tables in one corner packed with laughing tourists. A conflicting sight, but not uncommon. The Twin Shade was half-deserted, as was expected. It had only been 5, after all. Early for the evening crowd to fill the place.

The host, a young man in his late 20s, stood in front of his digital podium, diligently greeting the man in gray with a professional smile. If he was caught off guard seeing someone dressed like this entering an establishment such as the Twin Shade, he hid it exceptionally well.

"Welcome, sir." He said with a crisp unplacable Midwestern dialect. "Do you want me to guide you to a table?"

"I have a reservation, actually." The man in grey said, taking off his shades. Under the tinted expensive glass were startlingly pale blue eyes the color of a cloudless sky. "The guest hall on the second floor?"

"Of course, of course. What's your name, sir?"

"Jimmy Holmes."

The host consulted his list and looked up, the smile having never left his face. "Right this way, sir." He led the way through the maze of tables and toward the stair on one side of the kitchen door.

In these days and age, it was customary to ask for identification for all sorts of things, delivery, entrance to official buildings, even churches. But the host was maybe inexperienced enough that the man in gray wearing such an obscenely expensive suit was considered sufficient identification. Or perhaps it was the imposing tightness in his posture he couldn't quite hide, or the sheer self-assurance, near arrogance bleeding out of his gaze. The result was the same, the fake ID he had bought was completely unnecessary, a deathly funny joke wasted, even though few would have gotten it.

The guest hall on the second floor was large, as large as the entire restaurant down below, the kind suitable for massive events like weddings or private corporate celebrations.

"You didn't reply to our inquiry, sir, so we didn't know how to prepare the space for you." The place was indeed bare. Even tables and chairs were missing. "How many people are we expecting?"

"Five." The man in gray said, then after a moment of further consideration, added: "Maybe 8. No more than 10."

The host was good, too good for a place like Twin Shade. He only nodded as if it was exactly what he had expected to hear.

"I'll have them bring table and chair up for you."

"One last thing." The man in gray called the young host back before he could leave to tend to his duty. From inside his jacket, the man in gray produced a white card the size of one's palm made from tough and no doubt expensive material. Beautiful flowing Calligraphy danced across its surface in black ink. It read simply:

"Jackson Reunion.
Planning a surprise party for an old friend.
Twin Shade, Washing D.C., October 5th. 6 PM.
J.M."

"The people I'm expecting will have an invitation like this. Remember what it looks like."

"I remember." The host stared at the card for a moment then nodded. "How soon will they be arriving, sir? I'll...need some time to set everything up."

"Just the table and chair is enough, thank you. And some privacy. They won't arrive for another hour, so take your time. And pick the food for me while you're at it."

"Of course, sir." The polite smile was braced like a shield, the man in gray thought, the way it was used. Either a shield or a mask.

The door closed, then he was all alone in the massive room, bare and vacant. The amber light reflected off the green paint of the ornate walls, creating a strange mix of modern home design and out-of-date architecture wholly unfit for a dinning hall. The ticking of clocks echoed out of sync.

The man in gray gaze traced the dimming horizon and the brightening streets outside a window, shining downtown and flashing rivers of headlights, like the city was coming alive.

"I'm coming for you, old friend." His voice was the softest of whisper, to the empty room, to himself.

"Are you ready?"

 

[Aero Blue]

Omar Sussi's gaze bored into a cup of Darjeeling tea, so intensely one might have mistook him for attempting divination through leaves and liquid surface. The quiet, modestly successful café hummed with gentle, spring-like guqin song that rang untrue over the sound system, interspersed with the barely intelligible discourse of older folk and erudites who favored the pretensions of the place - faux-jade and quintessentially Asian, niche ceramics. Omar contributed little to the scene but his picturesque stoicism, endlessly portrayable in his best emulation of rigor mortis. He was anxious, and he was still when anxious, a coiled spring pressed upon by an unrelenting finger until, inevitably, he exploded with the weight's passing.

"How are we doing here?" The one who intruded upon his stillness had done so for the third time, annoyance hidden beneath gentle cerulean eye, a furrow threatening to crease her pale visage.

He had been here for hours, and for too long, the coffee shop across from the Twin Shade. It had been too long, as well, since he had travelled under another man's influence. He had always seen faces in the shadows, of his pursuers and his oppressors, but now there was a third force at work, one that had reached out to him. It brought him a certain uncomfortable, chilly disquiet. The paradigm of the hunter and the prey, the law and the wanted was easy enough to understand, but there was another agenda at work here.

I should kill him, and be done with this farce.​

And yet he knew this was out of the question.

"Fine," replied the man who was decidedly not fine, "I'm finished here."

He watched as the girl scurried away with his change in hand, eager to be free of his presence. Perhaps there was reason to have been worried of her demeanor, to have expected the hunter's presence outside the establishment glass, but her face had portrayed sheer, impudent annoyance, and not fear. He was just the interloper, and nothing more. All the same, he forced himself from the table, slithering away from his seat with practised efficiency, prosthetic handled with a fluidity born of grueling regiment. Best to be gone now; even a Z-lister from over half a decade ago could draw the intrepid eye.

Omar Sussi made for the Twin Shade, the Darjeeling left untouched behind him.

He swapped fake jade and pottery of middling quality for the dark reds and the tricks of lighting that cast an undeserved, unearned veneer of quality about the Twin Shade. The host was yet another pretension, with all the etiquette and decorum befitting a masquerade. Wordlessly, Omar procured the invitation from the pocket of his dark-green chinos - it had been bent and crumpled from his idle fumblings. Guest hall, second floor.

"Send up a water to drink. A decent salad, no dressing." And then he spared the host not another glance.

His face was fixed as he made for the room. Still.

I should kill him.

"I saw you enter here an hour ago." Omar never made eye-contact, and his even tone was strained, struggling to suppress a snarl, "Hello Morrison."

 

[Nemopedia]

For the umpteenth time pale fingers fiddled around with the card, flipping it round and round. Time and address were all clearly pressed, name familiar, but intent unclear. Was this a cruel trick, a trap? Jaden was unsure what to make of the whole invitation, but had hoped for something more obscure, not some flashy high-end place. Jaden was a punk, to put it in the slightest terms. Clad in black, with a shaved head and sorely out of place.

Yet the decision was made to appear. Stepping forward Jaden headed for the entrance waving the invitation around in a nervous manner. The host rose a brow taking the card with slight suspicion before deciding that it was a legitimate invitation. Whatever the judgement was the host hid it behind a poised mask as he stepped to the side and lead the way. Jaden said nothing of it, hands stuffed in the pockets of the coat and face hidden in the collar.

"Water and pasta" Jaden told the waiter before sitting down. Taking note that more were expected a glance was given to those who had already arrived. Familiar faces, vague names rising up, awful memories to boot. Forcing them away the gloomy and dark figure slumped down in the seat, eyes focused on James Morrison.

"What's the deal?"

Jaden tried not to be hostile, but made no hesitation either to express the worry and doubt that had been on mind.

 

[DayDreamer]

Now Alexandra had been on the run for too long. She had been almost caught by the goverment several times before too. It's not easy staying out of sight when the only powers that keep you going need to be played out regularly to maintain their edge. This, she thought, could be another trap to get her as she entered the seemingly high-end restaurant.

She was a weird sight to be seen in that place. Pink hair, black Assassin's Creed hoodie and baggy jeans with combat boots. A large set of headphones was dangling from her neck, but the host made no comment on her appearance as she approached him and pulled the crumpled invitation from her hoodie pouch, one hand still stuffed there. At a first glance, she was just another teenager, too bored to have her hands anywhere but her hoodie's pouch, but in reality, Alex was ready to ignite her Sith Lightsaber at the slightest indication of foul play. She hadn't ruled out the possibility of this being a trap, but her desire for revenge had lured her in.

The host asked her to follow him as he guided her to the upper floor. She had been very tense as she entered the large room, scanning for any danger, but she visibly relaxed when her eyes landed on a certain black-clad woman. She knew and remembered Ghost well enough. If she was here and this was no trap. Grabbing a chair and sitting on it in reverse, she smiled at the host "A Sprite and anything with meat in it. Thanks." She ordered and turned her focus on the people present.

When she felt like the host would be out of earshot, she eyed everyone in the room "So what's going on? Are we gonna kick ass?" Granted, she was called the Game Master for a reason. Alex was a teenager, or rather a young adult at this point that just loved video games and had recently discovered that the lines between reality and games were pretty blurred for her. Her perception of reality and how she expressed that had been thus affected.

 

[Jorick]

Hundreds of people walked by without really seeing Victoria. There she was, present and real and breathing like every one of them, but she had become part of the backdrop for them. Ragged clothing, a hat to hide her silver-grey hair, some dirt smeared on her face, a cardboard sign begging for change, and a paper cup sitting next to it for donations were all the disguise she needed to go undetected most days. Today had been very normal in that regard. Her little cup held maybe fifteen dollars, mostly in quarters, but she didn't give a damn about the money even though she murmured words of hollow gratitude to those who made themselves feel good by giving away tidbits they wouldn't have missed if it simply fell out of their pockets and into the gutter. Before coming to Washington, D.C., Victoria had killed an ATM in one of the seedier neighborhoods of Philadelphia, and the stack of twenties stashed away in an inner pocket of her coat would keep her going comfortably for weeks yet.

The entire purpose of the begging disguise was to be able to watch the surroundings of the Twin Shade without anyone getting suspicious. She'd been at it for days, moving a block or two every few hours while staying at lest a couple hundred feet away from her target. If there was any kind of trap at work, then the government pigs would have been setting up a net to catch and contain those who had been lured. Paying attention to the comings and going of people a fair distance away from the restaurant was therefore just as good in Victoria's eyes as watching the location itself. She wouldn't put it past the scheming bastards to put innocents in danger to catch their most wanted fugitives, so she'd decided trying to watch the employees of the Twin Shade for any sort of erratic behavior was at best going to be a waste of time. Though she had seen nothing much to rouse her suspicion, just a couple unmarked trucks delivering packages to businesses in the area, Victoria's paranoia was not at all soothed.

A digital clock on the exterior wall of a bank down the street said she didn't have much time until the 'reunion' was set to begin, so she set about packing up her things with haste. Everything she cared to bring with her fit into a large and dingy backpack, so she made her way into the restaurant with her grubby clothes and bag and a stained and bent card clutched in a fist. The man near the entrance gave her a familiar look of disapproval, the polite cousin of the disgust she normally received, but he managed to smooth his face over into a professional mask by the time she'd taken two steps into the building. Victoria showed him the card as he opened his mouth to say something, and so he shut it and nodded before guiding her up to the second floor.

Others had already arrived, but she didn't give them more than a quick look over before scurrying over to the corner nearest the door and planting herself there in a crouch, slightly more relaxed than she would have been if she remained standing but still ready to spring into action. The fact that she recognized some of those faces didn't mean a damn thing. For all she knew, they could be plants placed as part of the trap, people who had already been caught and turned to the government's side to help catch the last of the fugitives who had run free from Jackson. And so Victoria waited there in her corner, one hand keeping close to the wall in case she needed to break it down to escape and the other ready to pull out a length of wood carved into a crude facsimile of a machete out of her coat sleeve in case she needed to kill someone, just stewing in her own paranoid tension as she waited for something to happen to let her know which tool to use today.

 

[firejay1]

Yoru didn't know how the invitation had found him. Nor did he care. He was bored, and he wouldn't pass up a chance to stick it to the people who had him wind up in the Jackson Detention Center. There was always a chance it was a trap, he admitted, but he sincerely doubted that. If the government had found him well enough to send him a damn card, they would've gone and grabbed him right then and there. Or at least tried. His power wasn't all that scary that a few armored professionals couldn't have done the trick, or so he rather hoped they thought. So it wasn't with too much trepidation that he waltzed his way into the restaurant, a little bit late for their appointment. He had his bulging, dusty duffel bag slung over one shoulder, his ratty black hoodie and fraying jeans clearly not having been washed much more than the bag on his shoulder.

He was relatively clean, as he ever went, having had a little extra time and money to rent a cheap motel not far from the back alley where he'd been conducting his "business" for the past few days, but by no means did he look fitting in the setting the restaurant provided. Then again, neither would most anyone else invited to the party. The host gave him a politely blank look when he stepped across the threshold of the restaurant, his face perfectly schooled after having met a few other of the misfits who had no doubt already arrived, and simply asked, "Welcome, sir, do you have a reservation? Or would you like me to find you a table?"

Yoru held out the invitation wordlessly, and was guided to the second floor with very little ceremony. Days had somewhat blended into one another in the facility, so Yoru wasn't really sure he recognized any of the people there. The pink haired girl was vaguely familiar, and the man in the suit, James Morrison. That was about it. From the way they were all acting, the tension in the air, he knew these people were D.T. Nothing else really quite smelled like them. He said nothing, settling himself down into a chair, asking nothing from the host at all.