A Bitter Pill To Swallow

Eva nods at Augusta. "Yeah, I don't think this is the drug that... like modifies people, rewrites their genetics or something. I think it's either for keeping the subjects there hooked, or it's for some deficiency. Maybe both. That's why I want to have it analyzed."

Back the pills go into the woman's pocket, then she lifts her eyebrows as more comes out about Brian and the various vehicular mayhem that ensued. Her voice is lower when she changes the subject slightly.

"Have you guys experimented more with your abilities? If we're going to fuck with this guy, with Plaxco and Wyvern Lake... they'll hit back. They have some pretty serious... resources."

GRAYBRIDGE, 5 NOV 2023
Hu's Golden Fist Restaurant

'If you're up for it, we can go see Rebecca later today and maybe find out what's in those pills." Dave asked Eva. "I'm curious whether those are actually a Plaxo patented pharmaceutical. Where'd those come from?" He had a good idea about the source but wanted to be sure.
"You've got a point there, Eva." Dave agreed. "Augusta's hit & run attempt pretty much confirms these folks aren't above getting rough when they get mildly annoyed... That's not much of a problem for Eva or me. We're used to it but you two..." he looked at Augusta and Melissa "... that's a different matter. Since we couldn't get into Floyd's apartment the other day, Melissa and I experimented around with her abilities to get a better idea of what she could do. She's got a significantly useful set of abilities but they don't make her bulletproof... I told her we could go down to 'The Range' and get her familiar with some ordinance so she could protect herself. Augusta has her Goblin Half that would probably protect her but we don't really know her limits. Might be a good time to find out before we go kicking over any more hornet's nests... And he definitely had a particular hornet's nest in mind.

Wheels and gears turned in Dave's mind as the rudiments of a plan began to come together. "Your family probably has a couple of lawyers on retainer, right?" he asked Augusta. "Do you think maybe you could steer them into requesting any surveillance or traffic cam footage at the scene of your hit & run? You know, to sue the guy that hit you?" he winked conspiratorially.

Melissa nods along with Dave as he elaborates on her abilities."Makes sense to me to hone our skills." She smirks and air quotes at the word skills. "But what exactly are you planning, Dave? I can almost see the wheels turning in your head there."

"Tanya," Eva says simply to Dave. "She says she and all the other girls, subjects, whatever, take them."

When the conversation turns to Ang and Kort being able to fend for themselves in a fight, Eva looks at Augusta. "Happy to spar with you some time. It can be hard to know what you can do unless you kind of take the wraps off, you know?"

GRAYBRIDGE, 5 NOV 2023
Hu's Golden Fist Restaurant
As you're sitting together, discussing what you learned and how to proceed, there's an intrusive feeling of dread slowly rising in your heads, mild, not overwhelming but present and uncomfortable. The waiter currently wiping an empty table near the door stops mid-movement, his hands shaking as he looks around. He then swallows nervously and returns to his work, the movements more deliberate as he appears to be feeling that same discomfort but attempts to ignore it.

Wrinkling her nose, Melissa frowns as her cheeks redden.

Is that my BO?

Noticing the waiter act strangely and only too happy to take attention away from her stink, Melissa loudly whispers to the group, "Did you guys see that? The waiter...."

To Eva, she says, "There is the one side you've seen, but I don't know if you noticed, but water and rain do odd things around me. Mist and fog appearing around me, that sort of oddity. It's subtle, but I can control it, too."

Augusta thinks about the lawyer angle. "I don't know that it was a heavily camera'd area. We could check, but if so, sure, I could get Winn involved, see what he can dig up."

Eva's offer catches her offguard, and she frowns then grins widely. "Bring it, blondie! You and me, down by the river." She fakes a head pump at her playfully, then says, "Is it okay if I wear one of those big inflatable protective balls?"

The sudden feeling of dread ripples around them, and Augusta feels the hair raise on the back of her neck. She wants to make light of it, but she's made enough jokes for one day. She lets out a long breath, and invokes a state of no mind, a meditative effort to just be aware of the environment without judgement.

At the mention of cameras and such, Eva is about to bring up that she thinks they should wire up her apartment to watch for intruders (now that Tanya knows where she lives), but the thought flees as first Augusta agrees to the idea of training together, and then... then there's this feeling.

A feeling Eva has learned to not ignore. She's out of her seat and looking around as Melissa mentions the waiter. "Yeah. And... smell that? What is that?"

GRAYBRIDGE, 5 NOV 2023
Hu's Golden Fist Restaurant

Dave stopped just as he was about to answer Melissa, the creeping dread rushing over him before he split a big grin. "Oooh. That was fun." he sounded like he actually meant it. "You can always tell when you rattle the right cages by the kind of flying monkeys that get sent out after you... A psychic. Means they're not sure if they've got anyone to physically match us or they're just trying to be cheap. Meh. Could go either way."
"Hey." he stood up and turned around towards the other diners. "Could you do that again?" He seemed fairly jovial about the psychic attack as well as completely unconcerned at how the whole thing must look to the other restaurant patrons. "Aw, c'mon. Please?" He looked around for the possible culprit, scanning the line of tables from them to the busboy who got caught in the blast radius and just beyond.

GRAYBRIDGE, 5 NOV 2023
Hu's Golden Fist Restaurant

"Yeah, Eva that smell. I thought it was me. Hah!" Melissa thought she was losing it for a second there but when Dave seems so nonchalant about a supposed psychic attack, she relaxes a bit.

"So we have nothing to worry about then, Dave? I mean whose cages are we rattling? The people you mentioned? The ones that don't fuck around and mean serious business." This was a whole new world for Melissa and it was coming on fast and furious. She hoped she could keep up. Part of her was excited, the other part afraid.

GRAYBRIDGE, 5 NOV 2023
Hu's Golden Fist Restaurant

Dave's revelation that this might be a psychic attack helps. It doesn't stop the creeping dread in your minds, but it gives an explanation for it. And that makes it easier to ignore the heart-pounding and the way the air surrounding you feels wrong.
Your group clearly isn't the only ones affected, though. Looking around, everyone in the sparsely visited restaurant looks uneasy, most even worse than you all feel. And then, from outside, you hear screams.


Thinking of this sensation as a psychic attack, Dave realizes that it feels familiar. He's experienced this exact sensation before. It feels like when, at one of his meetings, Anna got fed up with him and used her powers to try and shut him down (probably unsuccessfully).
Except she has never been powerful enough to emotionally affect more than one person at a time. And not without being in the same room as her target.

GRAYBRIDGE, 5 NOV 2023
Hu's Golden Fist Restaurant

"Could be Wyvern Lake, could be somebody Floyd hired to get us off his tail... But there's at least one more option." He scanned around the room, registering faces. "One of the semi-regulars at the Support Group, Anna - Brock's girlfriend, can do things kinda like this...but not this many people at once and not this strongly. I don't see her inside. Someone maybe check outside? See if she's out there? Or maybe if its hitting people outside too?"

Suddenly wanting to be out of the place anyway, Eva nods and heads for the door. She's not sure what she's going to be looking for, but she's also pretty certain she'll know it when she sees it...

"Got it," she says to Dave on the way by.

Augusta says, "You're certain that Brian is a higher up in this whole endeavor, and not just an errand boy? Maybe we can drug him with a spy movie drug, like sodium pentathol or whatever. Does that stuff work? Get him to spill his guts, then roofie him so he doesn't remember."

She finds the idea distasteful, especially since she's not sure ...

"Can Anna ease someone's ... natural resistances to giving up their secrets?"

"Wait," Melissa says, holding her hands up to stop any further conversation. "Dave, why would this woman, Anna, I think you said, be making an attack on us or everyone here? I mean how does she even know we are here? Are you suggesting maybe Brian put her up to this and if so, how does he know we are here?"

Cutting a glance at Augusta, she nods. Maybe Anna, depending on whose side she ends up, on might be an asset with that gift of hers.

As Eva steps out onto the street, this begins feeling less and less like a targeted attack on her group. The effect is even stronger out here, dread pushing at her mind. And the people who are out all seem to feel it as well. They're cowering subconsciously, moving faster than normal as they're clearly uncomfortable out on the streets.
There's another scream from some distance away. Eva can't see the person screaming, but looking in that general direction, she sees something. Behind a building block, where she assumes another, identical block to be, a large shape, itself probably the size of a building, looms, just barely visible from her position, though she can't make out any details. If she had to guess, that is probably what's inspiring the screams.

Eva's powerful legs carry her back to the the door in the blink of an eye, then she pokes her head inside. "Guys! Something's going on! Something big!"

And with that, the woman is gone, fairly leaping to the sidewalk, where she starts running -- straight towards the thing.

Augusta grabs her phone back from Melissa and runs, following Eva, or at least going in the same direction as the powerful woman. She stuffs the phone away and then considers what she's doing. Don't expose yourself. But I can't do nothing. What could I do? Me? Little, but new me, maybe much more.

Melissa was waiting for an answer from Dave but that would have to wait. When Eva came bounding back into the restaurant in a state of distress she glanced at the others. "Shit. That doesn't sound good." Rising quickly from her seat, she follows Augusta out the door hoping that Dave will be right behind her.

Eva's warning didn't sound good and the woman wasn't known for exaggerating. Augusta and Melissa left the table and Dave did the same right in their heels. Eva was already gone but the blonde amazon wasn't hard to spot on the run. 'Alright, Peepers, what's going on over there?" he looked to Melissa to hopefully be able to fill in the big gaps in the situation. "I swear, though, if a giant marshmallow man rounds that corner..." he let the statement trail off as he moved in front of Melissa and Augusta to deflect the people running down the sidewalk in near panic.