Summary:SHIELD conducts a raid on the Obsidian Club when they learn of the presence of Thunderbolt there. Log Info:Storyteller: roy-harper |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
       |
A few days ago, Roy Harper had brought in a member of the Dogs of Hell that had recently returned from Afghanistan with a dangerous new drug. While they were able to stop /that/ shipment, some of the pills had made it into the hands of the gang, and they were working on dealing them out. One of the men that had been captured had agreed to turn over to SHIELD the evidence that he had and work on being an informat.
That probably happened after he saw his friend die a horrible death in the field. The information led SHIELD to where a meeting of the Dogs of Hell was taking place - the Obsidian is right on the edge of Alphabet City and Mutant Town, both of which could be fertile ground for the group to sell the pills that they have.
They've taken over part of the Obsidian Club currently, claiming an out of the way area. Security is sneered at, but they're buying the drinks that they need and being rather rowdy while giving the performers the attention they deserve. While they're not completely entranced by the exotic beauty finishing her set, they are currently speaking lowly with what looks like an obvious mutant. His skin is a golden-hue, wearing sunglasses and a shirt opened to near the navel, wearing chains and an Italian suit.
The pass is about to happen - a baggie of small lightning bolt shaped pills for what looks to be a satchel full of cash.
Sitting in the club and nursing a whiskey sour, Roy Harper has his trucker hat pulled down - totally trying not to pay attention to the woman on stage as he lifts up his artifical arm, and speaks into the communicator in it quietly over the din of the music. "This is the best assignment ever. Just saying. But the drop's about to happen. Group is in southwest corner, by the VIP lounge."
SHEILD is out in the back of the club, some of them infiltrated, like Roy, others in a black van in uniform.
"I count five Dogs, and three buyers. Now or never."
Sam Guthrie is distinctly uncomfortable and sitting at the bar, very carefully not looking at the stage. He appreciates a lady's assets, sure enough, but it just doesn't seem quite right just looking at 'em right in front of a bunch of strangers, no matter how much money they make doin' it. Something about it just sits wrong with the Kentucky boy and he's instead focusing on trying to faux-sip on his beer.
Plus, it lets him focus on the job at hand. He can't be distracted by the ladies if he doesn't look.
"Still an awful lotta civilian types around here. This could get real messy. Just sayin'," he adds into his comm.
"Roger that, Harper," Sarah Black replies, using her earpiece comm, her Londoner accent a bit more crisp and clipped than usual. "Team, Black. All right, people. Remember there are civilians present. Keep it subtle as much and for as long as you can. Nonlethal force /only/. I repeat, nonlethal /only/. Plainclothes, move in, tac team on standby. Over." And with that, Sarah herself moves in the direction of the deal going down, while trying to remain blended in with the other patrons and looking like she belongs here…
Said exotic beauty is, honestly, hard to ignore, but it can be done, and those who are determined and focused on something else - especially a 'job', tend to have more luck at that than others. So too, of course, do those who aren't attracted to women. The mixed-race beauty on stage was introduced as the mystical, magical Voodoo, and her initial costume was quite outlandish. There's not much of that costume left at this point, as most of it has been peeled off during her set, discarded here and there. In recommence, quite a lot of money has been tucked into the bright purple g-string that yet remains.
The caramel-skinned, raven-haired beauty has proven to have incredible athleticism paired improbably with equally amazing curves and supple grace, not to mention an inborn instinct to read the audience and cater to what they want. Her empathic nature has told her only a bit more than the simple people-reading instincts of the rest of the club: she not only knows the gang over nearer the bar than the buffet are dangerous, but also that they mean real harm; this location is a choice of tactical convenience, not purrient desire. Yet the dancer's consumate skill as a performer keeps her going despite her concerns for herself, her coworkers, or the civilians in the audience … at least until the penny drops.
Luckily, one of said civilian types is slightly less than civilian. Jean Grey has been talking with one of the would-be dancers, a mutant girl whose mutation is well-suited to this work - shimmering skin, striking looks…and a tendency to give off certain pheremones. But the girl is nervous and not actually inclined for this work. She's been feeling trapped, but doesn't know how to get out or what she's going to do with herself once she does.
So Jean came in for moral support when she was planning to quit. It's not exactly her scene either, but she came early enough to let the girl finish her shift, which means she has some time to kill. And with little interest in the show, she's been watching the bar. Where she sees one Sam Guthrie.
Quirking a brow, she steps up next to his stool and clears her throat.
While Noh-Varr is technically a member of SWORD, a often as not, he's working with SHIELD since the space arm of the organization is more of a watchdog than anything else at the moment and that's exactly how they like it: to be otherwise means there's an imminent chance of attack. Obviously, someone who knows him tasked him with this assignment since he's fitting in perfectly with the crowd, enthusiastically cheering on the dancers and enjoying their assets in all their glory. As instructions are given, he stands, stretches and starts wandering over toward where the buy is going down.
It's been awhile since Rose has been here. Old hunting grounds. She'd even done a stint as a stripper at the club, when she wasn't sure where she wanted to go with her life, but now the hard-body is coming in as a customer, dressed in a pair of black short-shorts, knee-high stockings and killer boots along with a matching silver half-top that leaves little to the imagination of her own assets, or atheleticsm behind. She also doesn't appear to be carrying any weapons (for once), though that could be a mistake to presume for those that know her.
Her platinum hair is flowing as she looks over the customers with her monocular vision and sees one person at the onset she knows. That one, being her teammate, Noh-Varr. That causes her to smirk.
She doesn't approach him yet, and maybe she won't. Instead, she measures the room, getting a feel for it and where she'd like to spend her time.
"On your go, Black. By the way, black looks damn good on you." Roy responds. Downing the rest of the drink with one swig, he pushes up from the table, leaving a fiver for the girl that's going to be cleaning up after. The manager of the club glances over as Roy gets up and starts to look nervous. He'd been briefed on what was going down - and he had passed the word to his girls that would be on the floor at the time.
That's when things start to turn a little sideways - one of the mutants with the gold-skinned one glances around himself suddenly. "The vibe's weird here." he mutters, frowning as he tries to get what it is that he feels.
"What is it?" asks the gold-skinned one.
"Hearts are starting to race. Don't think it's the girl on stage. Shit!" he says, "Feels like a set up!"
"We didn't set you up!" responds the man in the beard and bandana, a pitbull with devil horns tattooed on his left forearm. "You bring the fuzz down on us?!" The baggie is grabbed and opened, as the men start to get the pills ready. "Don't know, don't care, time to ride the dragon and ice the pigs."
As the gang in the corner starts to yell, the waitresses are working on trying to usher people away quickly, leaving Priscilla on stage. Things could get ugly very quickly.
Sam Guthrie can't deny he's one of the racing hearts in the place. While he's got plenty of field experience with the X-men, he still wants to make a good impression on his first field work as an agent of SHIELD. Just his luck that the perp in this case can sense that sort of tension.
Jean almost startles him, "Hey, Jean, uh…I didn't expect you…are you on this…I don't normally go to these types of…" And then things start to get hairy and he takes teh chance to join the waitresses in trying to usher people out, pushing up from his stool. He looks like the country boy he is, with a denim jacket over a button down shirt, hair pushed down under a Kentucky Wildcats baseball cap. Go, Blue.
He finally does look up at Priscilla, calling out, "Uh, ma'am, I think things are, uh…I think there's kind of a situation, so maybe you oughtta make sure you're in a safe place," he says.
The dancer on stage suddenly changes her performance. "Penny!" she shouts, and then backs up, sprints and leaps from her stage towards the other one, literally trying to clear over Jean's head, aiming for the shiny-skinned beauty performing on that smaller stage. Pris acts just as the demeanor of the group is starting to shift internally, not externally, and there's a flare of energy across the Astral when the concern for the girl sets in.
Most improbably, despite platform stilt heels, the stripper does manage to clear most of the intervening space, but she doesn't just tackle the other dancer; she lands at the edge of her little stage and picks the girl up, turning so that Voodoo's back is now towards the gang at the bar, trying to hand Penny down towards Jean as she tenses her body, apparently expecting trouble and pain.
« Sam, what exactly is going on here? » Jean doesn't ask out loud, but the voice in his head is no doubt familiar. Conveniently, she doesn't need to be anywhere near him to ask, either, as she's already moving toward the stage at the same time as Priscilla. There's a flare of recognition for another empathic talent, but then Jean is tightening down her shields. This is not a time to get overwhelmed by the emotions in the club.
"On the up side, Penny, I'm starting to think you won't need to quit if the place goes up in flames," she says as she helps hand the girl down, bringing up a shield of telekinetic force between the pair of them and the gang in the corner as she ushers the girl toward the back exit. "I'll meet you ouside. Get clear, okay?"
Sarah's voice is calm and controlled over comms, though with a clear edge of urgency. "Team, Black. We're blown. Tac team, exfil civs and set perimeter. Plainclothes, go for takedown." And with that, she gestures and speaks a few arcane words — and vanishes from sight, as her invisibility glamour cloaks her from others' perception.
"Ice the pigs." Noh-Varr repeats. "Colloquialism meaning to kill the police officers right? I saw that on a movie once. It doesn't make you sound tough, just uneducated." There's a flash of light around him and his long sleeved civvies turn into a short sleeved SHIELD uniform, revealing both Nega-Bands and his battle gauntlet. "You might not realize it, humans, but you are hopelessly outclassed by a KRee warrior. I'll let you surrender to my SHIELD allies now so I can go back to watching the dancers. Or, I can hurt you. Please choose quickly."
For her part, Rose Wilson merely bends across a table - giving the men there who were startled at the outbreak a look at her assets while she's busy grabbing one of their beers. She takes the bottle, and finishes chugging it down in a couple great big swallows.
"Hey, Pris. See you're still here," Rose calls, lifting her hand. "You should've called." Not that Pris had her number. "Didn't know it'd gotten more exicting around here. Also didn't know you could pick up Kree Warriors in strip clubs. Have to remember that one."
Rose then twists the empty bottle in her hand, and whips the bottle through the air at the tattooed guy.
When Priscilla suddenly takes off in a flying jump, Roy's left momentarily agape. "Holy leaping jigglers, Batman." he comments with wide eyes as she brings down the other dancer to bring them to cover. That leaves him distracted enough that he remembers that he couldn't exactly bring his bow in here, and has to use one of the icers. He fires off a shot, striking one of the bikers before he can get his hand on a pill and takes him down.
Rose's bottle strikes another biker. The bottle slams into the side of his head - before he could get his own pill down, but there's still a few that manage to do so.
For those with telepathy and empathy, there is a sudden and terrible rush of /pure/ euphoria from those that have taken the pills. They might as well be on another world, and honestly, the euphoria could be almost as addictive as the pill itself was when it was swallowed.
As the rush hits, one of the remaining bikers rushes at Noh-Varr. If the Kree warrior decides to tank the punch, he'll find that the hit is clumsy, but it's akin to feel like being smacked by a semi doing 60 on the highway. The strength is enhanced vastly by the pills.
Oddly enough, the gold-skinned mutant didn't take the pill - instead, he lifts his hands and starts to bring power to bear, siphoning off what little light is in the dim club to make his body glow with raw power. "Fucking flatscans." he growls. Not that he knows what the mix is.
Sam responds to Jean in his head, <Bad things afoot at the Circle K, Jean. Drug dealers and bad folks and cops out to get 'em. Oh. And I'm one of the cops.>
Since the strippers seem capable of taking care of themselves, he turns back towards the gang and sees the gold-skinned mutant begin gathering power around himself. He wasn't sure what kind of firepower this guy had but Sam knew it probably wouldn't be good for any of the normal folks in range. Time to make himself a target.
"Not everybody, boy!" he shouts at the gold-skinned one as there's a building energy around him and fiery force begins to swirl in a sphere about the body of the country boy, a slow rotation accompanied by a whine like a jet engine firing up as his blast field activates and wreathes him in power.
Leaping jigglers indeed. Voodoo isn't exactly dressed for a fight; Hell, she's barely anything one would call dressed at all. Yet the dancer acts without much apparent fear for the consequences or risks. Once Penny is 'safe' in Jean's care, the nearly naked stripper hops down herself - she really moves with incredible agility and balance considering she does all of this on those heels - and ducks low, trying to keep out of the line of sight and targeting.
And then Rose calls out, and Noh-Varr reveals himself. Pris glances towards Rose, but doesn't raise her hand right now; the rush of euphoria from the pills is almost disorienting, but hearing those words shouted - Kree warrior - causes her to stop, stock still, and purple eyes twist towards the warrior as adrenaline that needs no pill or syringe dumps into her system. She locks into that threat, but now is not the time. She will hunt later. But it does mean Pris is still out and about in the midst between SHIELD agents and gang members. Not a healthy place to be.
« Oh, the SHIELD thing? Nice to see they've got you out in the field already. » Because this is clearly the time for conversation about life plans and how's the new job. Once the dancer is clear of the doors, Jean turns back around to survey what they're dealing with here.
Sam has the gold-skinned man. But there are multiple men who've just taken a power-up. Time to test just what's been powered up. Keeping the TK shield in front of herself, she focuses her mind instead, firing a psychic bolt at the nearest of the drugged men to see if their minds are any more vulnerable than their bodies.
Having moved invisibly to a better vantage point, Sarah sees the gold-skinned mutant powering up as well. Taking advantage of Sam's attempt at drawing said mutant's attention, she quickly casts an attack spell — choosing blunt impact as opposed to any elemental effect that might have undesirable side effects here — and dialing it back to a level that shouldn't be life-threatening as she lets fly at her target, her cloaking glamour dropping as the attack streaks away from her gesturing hands.
Noh-Varr stays exactly where he was, merely leaning back and to the side just enough that the punch misses him by less than an inch. A martial arts master in a Grade B movie couldn't have done it better. Maybe he's been watching some of them. "I saw that in a movie too." he confirms. "My turn." Grabbing the biker by the neck, he lifts him up and throws him at the glowing mutant. Looking over at Sarah, he asks "Does the drug make them more resistant to damage as well?" I.e. 'Can I hit them really hard?'
"Oh, good. A pissing match," Rose replies as she considers the showdown between the golden-skinned mutant, and Sam Guthrie. As civilians move past and towards the exit-door.
"Not really," she answers Noh-Varr's question to Sarah. She slides past another fleeing civilian who was just her to watch the girls dance and she surveys the ones still standing, fighting. A few of the Dogs, yes. A few of the SHIELD types too. She's walked into quite the mess.
She makes for one of the Dogs whose just downed one of the pills, and she levels a hard, pointed-toe kick directly into his groin.
Trying to get into their brains is like trying to get into a dance club where everyone's a VIP, there's foam everywhere, and just the sheer thrill of it all is like being on a super-high. Jean may find her own psi-bolt invited to the party as well. It's as if they're on auto-pilot and everyone's the target.
"Shit, Sam's gone Super-Saiyan!" is Roy's remark when the Kentucky boy's blast field comes into play. The gold skinned mutant, would be drug pusher, turns his attention to the field, and grunts. "Suck this, SHIELDie!" he yells at him, before firing an intense solar beam directly into the force barrier, trying to heat the mutant Cannonballer up!
That is until Sarah flanks him with a blast that knocks him off his feet and onto the ground, sending the blast careening into the bar, where it causes several bottles of liquor to ignite and explode. And the brief showing by Agent Black is rewarded by one of the drugged bikers attempting to smash a two-handed strike into Sarah's side.
Rose slams her boot into the man's groin, and he cries out, but he doesn't fall. She remembers this song and dance. Enchanced strength, enhanced endurance. He takes a hard swing at the woman as he starts to go down, trying to punch her backwards.
For the last man though - something different happens. The pill takes effect- but as soon as it does, it triggers. The man /screams/ in unholy pain, howling like a deranged monkey. His eyes turn red to the point where they /burst/ and blood spills from his eyes, noes and ears as his mouth foams up. Dropping to his knees in angonizing euphoria, he seizures, and then dies.
The solar blast makes an impact on the blast field, starting to push it in until Sam redoubles the effort of it. The sphere of power around him flares, knocking aside a few chairs and tables, force building and coalescing around Sam's body.
"I do believe this is the part where you oughtta give up, but I know you ain't goin' to. Guys like you never do, not until you get punched in the mouth. So allow me to do the punchin'," he says.
And suddenly he erupts, Cannonball propelled across the room at startling speed, just blasting the length of the room in a fraction of a second to impact against the golden man, likely doing no small amount of collateral damage in the process as he extends his fists ahead and uses the blast field as the weapon it is.
The Torturers are working with SHIELD! That knowledge, now branded across Priscilla's mind, distracts her for a few moments, but then she files it away to be dealt with later, finally breaking the fugue state as the battle starts to devolve around her. Seeing her coworkers and customers largely gone to safety, the nearly naked stripper heads towards the only person present here she knows - Rose - and tries to render aid, a sharp and incredibly - improbably - powerful blow to the back of the neck and shoulder. She's not SHIELD, and doesn't much care if this guy survives the blow, as long as the threat of him is neutralized.
Finding the chaos of the drug when she tries to make a psychic strike, Jean reels back a couple steps, shaking her head quickly. Right then. Not the time to try with the psychic powers. But that's all right, really. She has other skills.
Instead, she raises a hand, lifting the man with her mind and pressing him back against the wall with a tremendous amount of pressure. Given his current state, she doesn't expect it to necessarily slow him or even hold him, but if she can keep it up for long enough, she might be able to press the air from his lungs long enough to put him under.
Sarah becomes aware of the man swinging on her in time that she can attempt to dodge, though she's not able to entirely avoid the hit. She does, however, turn it from a solid, super-strike that might have ended the fight for her into a glancing impact that nonetheless sends her sprawling, with a sharp cry of pain at her bruised and possibly cracked ribs, followed by rapid-fire cursing in an assortment of long-dead languages.
Her retaliation follows quickly, the point where the Cuss Words of the Ancients end and the incantation of the spell begins not entirely clear as she fires another blunt-force burst up at the man who struck her, point blank.
"Oh, okay, Rose. I didn't know you worked here." No enhanced endurance then. Though as Rose kicks a guy in the balls and he barely flinches, Noh-Varr revises that answer to a 'yes'. Taking a moment to study the tactical situation, he winces a bit as Sam blasts across the room. "They hate it when we do that." he tells the newbie. "They have to pay for what we break." Voice of experience there. His gauntlet starts shifting, flowing down into his hand and turning into a blaster which gets pointed at the biker he threw. Choosing a power level somewhere between tickling Kori and punching a hole through a battleship hull, he fires a concussive beam. It's a fine line between unconscious and a stain on the wall.
Rose gets clocked by the man, her body spinning a moment. But she recovers, faster than a normal person should - especially given the enhanced strength the other was experiencing through the rush of the drug. She works her jaw a moment, then she twists towards him, taking advantage of the opening Pris presents by snapping a hard punch directly into the man's throat, and following it up with the opposite hand doing an upward palm-strike into the fellow's nose. She, at least, is trying to play 'nice', and not kill the targets. So, that's something.
"Good to see you again," Rose says, with a lopsided grin towards Pris. "We should do this more often."
"Don't," she tells Noh-Varr. Then she adds, "You spoiled my plans for this evening, you know." As she steps back to see if her target is down, going to explode as the others have, or is going to attack them again.
"If he starts screaming," she looks to Pris, "You might want to take a step back. Gets messy."
Jean's attack on her thug shoves him against the wall and table. There's a hard whoof of air as he's taken down, and slides to the ground, slipping into unconsciousness. He's out of the battle.
He's quickly joined as Sarah's attacker is thrown back against the same wall by her cursing incarnations and he tumbles end over end, just as Sam slams into the golden skin mutant, finding out quickly that he's a glass cannon.
The mutant is taken down by the attack, but the hit sends the pair of them careening into the buffet, where the last of the bikers ends up after Noh-Varr's blast sends him flying backwards and crashing into the salad part of it. Rose's palm strike is the final blow, taking down her biker - and the only sound after a few moments is the music from Priscilla's set still playing, and the crackling of a few bottles that broke and were still aflame.
Sam careens as usual, carshing into the buffet and sending the all-you-can-eat riblets flying in every direction, the prone form of the golden skinned mutant bent amidst the wreckage of the sneeze guard.
Sam dusts himself off as his blast field turns down, not fully dispersing it in case any of the other bikers want to take a swing at the guy who just ruined the discount feedbag.
"This is the part where you get arrested," he says to the unconscious mutant, rolling the guy over and reaching into his own jacket to get a pair of cuffs.
"I'd rather not." Priscilla admits to Rose, with a shrug. Then she glances at the bar and winces. "We need a fire extinguisher." Alcohol, on fire, spreads and burns hot enough to set other things on fire. Lots of flammable things to be found in a place like this, especially near the bar. Unfortunately, knowing where something like that is kept has not been a priority for the stripper, so she just sort of stands there, trying not to stare with abject horror not at the carnage wrought, but at Noh-Varr.
Jean, ever practical, knows where the fire extinguisher is. Right by the door she hurried Penny out of. Once the bikers are down, she goes to retrieve it from the wall, picking her way through the wreckage to get to the bar and extinguish the flames. PFFFFFT! PFFT! PFT!
Nothing to see here, just an otherwise ordinary young woman unfazed by the surrounding chaos.
Getting back to her feet with the aid of a nearby table and one of its chairs, Sarah starts to take a deep breath — and immediately regrets it, wincing as the pain in her battered side flares up. Glancing around to take stock of the situation, she says, "Team, Black. Tac team, oppos are down, move in to cuff and process. Also going to need forensics and a med examiner. One of the perps had a messy bad reaction to this lovely shite they're peddling."
"Sorry." Not sorry, Noh-Varr tells Rose. "But if you were looking to pick up a guy to sleep with, there are better places. I know of a lot and some of the guys are bi. I can hook you up if you want." Since it seems he picked the right amount of force, and the others appear to be taken care of, the blaster reforms itself into a gauntlet, covering his upper hand, wrist and lower forearm below the Nega-Band. "That is a very dangerous drug." he decides. "What happens if someone with power takes it?"
"Most of them have a messy reaction," Rose shares with Sarah and Noh-Varr. She rolls her eye at Noh-Varr, then shrugs. Perhaps she didn't know why she came here, or didn't really have any plans. Still, it's pretty clear she won't be hanging out in the club tonight.
Instead she lifts her chin to Sam, suggesting, "Next time, maybe don't activate your outdoor abilities inside?" Sarcasm there.
She moves to one of the surviving chairs, and sits down, leans back in it and looks to Pris. "Didn't figure to still find you here. You had options." She shrugs, though, indifferent.
With the men down, it's all over but the cleanup. There's still a couple of pills in the baggie on the table. And the satchel that the mutant had it has close to ten thousand dollars in it. It wouldn't be hard to figure out what could have happened if these pills had made it into Mutant Town, as Roy goes over to join the others to start to work the clean up of the scene. See, he can be responsible!
Sam Guthrie gets the mutant secure, at least for now, and pushes back up to his feet.
"I don't think he was gonna offer the same courtesy, ma'am. Seemed like a good idea to take 'im out before we found out what he was capable of," he says. "But I'll keep it under advisement for the future."
And then Sam does what Sam would do and, unless anyone stops him, starts to help clean up the place, picking up some of the broken furniture and organizing an effort to put it together into a shared pile. He hopes SHIELD's insurance at least will cover the damage.
Clue one that this is the perfect job for Priscilla? She hasn't an iota of body modesty to even think about covering herself, even as tactical geared men and women come charging in to take control of the scene, document the crime, and escort out the criminals in question. Pris tears her gaze away from Noh-Varr, finally, and looks to Rose. "We all have options, and we all make choices." she offers. Makes no sense, right?
Then the stripper - the only club employee still out and about - walks over to the bar and climbs up on one of the few stools still standing. "Thanks for putting out the fire." she comments to the redhead behind the bar. "Take good care of Penny, OK? She's a great kid, and this isn't the right place for her. She won't be happy, here, in this life."
Noh-Varr looks over at the dead one who bled from all his orifices. A messy reaction is an understatement. "And yet the mutant was going to buy it. He'd have killed the ones he was selling it to." Assuming he was going to sell it to other mutants. He just shakes his head and lets the others do the cleanup. Looking around, he spots his drink where he left it and walks over to get it.
Jean looks over to Priscilla as she approaches, nodding with a small smile. "Of course," she says simply. "I was getting that impression. She just needs a chance to figure out who she wants to be, instead of worrying about what everyone else sees in her." Clothes or no, she offers a hand out to the other woman, tucking the fire extinguisher under her arm. "I'm Jean. You must be Priscilla. She mentioned someone here had been trying to help her. I don't think she would have made it to me without that encouragement, so thank you."
Once she's made certain that the remaining pills and the cash are properly secured, Sarah is more than happy to let the less combatant elements take charge of the scene, "Nice job, people," she says, "That could have gone a lot worse. Thank you." She then heads over toward the bar, and the very notable one remaining club employee. "Hello," she says to the dancer, doing her level best to keep her eyes on the woman's face, and nearly succeeding. Or at least not failing all that badly. "Our apologies for the mess. It will be taken care of, of course." Offering her hand, she adds, "Sarah Black, agent in charge."
Pris takes Jean's hand, giving a gentle but firm squeeze and a shake. "Pris to my friends." But at their touch there's another sympathetic flare, as Pris' powerful but not so super well trained psionic powers respond to the immediate presence of another powerful - and shielded - mind. Those purple eyes of hers flare in the dim interior of the club, and then the flare blanks out, leaving an Astral hum fading in the background. "Sorry about that. Thanks for making sure the place doesn't burn down. I'd hate to have no place to work during repairs."
When Sarah approaches, Pris turns and accepts her hand, smiling warmly then pausing a moment, her other hand lifting to cover her nose and mouth as she sneezes. Her nose wiggles as she pulls the hand away, grabbing a lightly charred bar towel to wipe it off. "Hi, Agent Black. I'm Pris. Voodoo, up there on stage. I'm sure my bosses will appreciate the repair work. I'm just hoping I won't be out of a job for too long while that happens." Hey, it's government work; anything could happen. And if she notices Sarah noticing her, she says nothing. "Do you all need statements and such? I can go grab a wrap, try to get presentable."
Rose slips off the table after uncrossing her legs, she takes a look towards Sam, then she looks between Pris and Sarah, smirking some. "I'm outta here." She, apparently, is not as willing as Pris to stick around and provide a statement. A glance to Jean, and Rose considers the redhead thoughtfully before nodding to her once and then walking past her with a clicking of her bootheels on the floor.
A hand lifts to Pris, "Catch you later, hotstuff." And then she's walking towards the exit, remarking to Noh-Varr as she passes him, "We'll talk later."
Jean's smile quirks at that flare of recognition, head tilting with a slight shake to Priscilla. "Nothing to apologize for," she murmurs before Sarah arrives, setting the fire extinguisher down next to herself. She's definitely the outlier here - not even dressed up like she came for a strip club, and definitely not with SHIELD.
Noh-Varr finishes his beer and sets the bottle back down, pulling a couple bills out of his pocket and putting them under the bottle. "Have fun." he tells Rose. "Statements shouldn't be necessary. We saw it all ourselves so don't need to bother anyone else."
With a slight smile, Sarah replies to Pris, "That would probably be for the best. My impetuous colleage notwithstanding, Owens over there will want to speak with you and get your view of what happened." As she's speaking, she gestures to a 30-something type who's doing his best to avoid looking in Pris's direction. "Also, my apologies for interrupting your act. I wasn't able to pay as much attention as I would have liked, but what I saw of it was very… impressive." She grins slightly as she adds, "I'll have to come back once the repairs are complete."
Pris takes a moment to make eye contact with Rose as the platinum blonde is leaving, then her gaze returns to Sarah, her smile broadening a bit. "Quite OK. You didn't exactly decide when to move, they did." And the stripper apparently is very well aware of that, which is pretty unusual; she should have been too focused on her performance to know that sort of thing. Yet there are at least two, if not more, SHIELD agents present who could testify Pris was very tuned in to what was happening, and reacted accordingly.
"I'm glad you enjoyed the show." Pris offers with a twinkle of warmth and amused pleasure in her tone to Sarah. "If you're still around when I get back with my wrap, I'll give you one of my tickets, you can get in without a cover when we re-open. If you want." What? Did anyone think Pris of all people would avoid fliring with the pretty magical SHIELD agent? Puh-lease!
That said, as promised Pris slips off the bar stool and nods to Jean, then heads down the bar to the curtained doorway at the back, heading for the dressing room to fetch said wrap and the ticket pass.
Jean, on the other hand, is not offering to make any statements. As a matter of fact, by the time Priscilla is turning away, she's already stepped away from the bar and is halfway to the door. Nothing to see here, just a civilian getting out of the way!
Noh-Varr rolls his eyes. "It's wasting their time. We were all right here." But he shrugs, adding her to the 'regulations first whether they make sense or not' category. "You're very good." he compliments Priscilla, making it a statement of fact and not flirting. "If you see anyone else trying to sell or buy that shit in the future, let us know."
Before Jean makes her getaway, Sarah calls out to her. "Ms. Grey. It's a pleasure to see you again, but I can't help thinking this isn't your sort of establishment."
Jean stiffens a bit when Sarah calls her name, turning around with a small smile. "I've been doing a little social work through the Mutant Town community center since graduation," she explains. "There's a girl here who's…No one's made her do anything, but you know the type. Doesn't want to make waves, just wants to make people happy. But this isn't the right place for her to do that. Not safely. So I came for moral support when she was planning on quitting."
She looks around the place, rueful. "Probably going to be a lot easier for her to way away, given the current status of the place. They can't really blame someone for needing to find work, right?"
Nodding to Jean, Sarah says, "I imagine this line of work isn't for everyone, no. It's good of you to help her find her way. Not everyone would have that kindness." She winces again as she manages to move just a bit wrongly, at least according to the opinion of her injured side. "Others seem to thrive on dancing, though. A matter of personality, I suppose."
As promised, after just a few minutes Priscilla returns, wrapped this time in a long, thin silk purple kimono-like robe with a large gold-highlighted emerald dragon across the back; unlike her usual after-set robe, this one isn't translucent, so it's a bit more decent than her norm while on the job. She walks right back to the barstool she abandoned earlier, extracting a slip of paper from the pocket of the robe and offering it to Sarah as she sits up onto the stool. "As promised, Ms. Very Special Agent."
Then Pris looks past Sarah to offer a little nod towards Jean. "Take good care of Penny. You two know where to find me, if you need anything." And hey, as long as she keeps focusing on anyone else, she can keep most of the tension of knowing there's a Kree in the room under wraps. Most.
"Hey, whatever makes people happy," Jean shrugs, smile crooked. "It's not for me, but it certainly looks like good money for artistic expression. Can't say that about a lot of things. And I've worked enough waitressing jobs to know you don't have to have your clothes off for guys to be creeps, so. Just doing what I can to make the world a better place." Sure, sometimes that means throwing a thug against the wall with her brain, but no one needs to know about that part.
Sarah makes a little circular gesture, and a little round portal, maybe a foot across, irises open in midair, ringed by glowy mystical geometries. She reaches through, finds what she was looking for, and draws her hand back out before dismissing the portal. "Sorry," she says, grinning. "But I don't exactly have pockets in this outfit, and carrying a purse seemed unwise." Then she holds out her hand to Pris, offering her card — White, with the WAND logo in light grey as a background, and with Sarah's name spelled out in crisp black text overlying it, with "Field Agent" beneath, and the expected contact information at the bottom. And then she turns it over, and another number is hand-written on the back. "Here," she says, exchanging the card for the offered ticket.
Pris visibly suppresses a sneeze when Sarah invokes the magic to open the portal and hands her the card; she then completes the transaction with a smile, glancing at both sides before tucking the card away; the where should be obvious without mention. "Thank you. And believe me, I get the lack of pockets thing. The mystical portal solution is a new one on me, but a nice trick." And if there happens to be a ten digit number scrawled on the back of the ticket in Sarah's hand, Pris doesn't mention it. But Sarah's a very special agent; surely she notices all on her own, right?