Late night desires (rift, open)

[jade]

It was dark and new Moon made the night even darker as Jade strolled down the streets of New York. She maneuvered through the crowds of people, making sure to not be noticed as she hunted the man she had been doing surveillance on for a while now. Another one responsible for the torment of the innocent and sake of human flesh. The man ducked into a seedy bar and Jade followed him inside. Her black leather her bomber jacket hid her weapons well as she bellied up the bar making sure to gain the attention of the man she tracking and the bar tender. She yelled loudly over the bar and ordered her drink.

“Whiskey neat”

The bar tender nodded to her and poured her a drink of the brown beverage. She leaned up against the bar and sipped her drink watching everyone around her as voices clamored on talking and the hum of music from the Juke box filled the air. Jade had to admit for a dive bar this place seemed pretty neat. She kept her eyes on her target contemplating her next move.

[Martyr]

Lyja the Lazerfist
(Lauren Green)

✳️

Lyja was a soldier. Lyja was a spy. What she knew was deception and secrecy. She knew the secrets men tried to hide, not because she could read their faces or know their minds. It was much simpler. She took the form of a friendly face, or at least a neutral one. She was not a know enemy even if they were small and crawling things unknowingly wandering into a carefully laid web.

She was therefore among them as a human. Sometimes at a place like this, a hero went slumming. Sometimes a warrior spilled secrets of war. Even if this did not happen, she could enjoy this Earth concoction known as a mojito. 

In her current form, she was calculated not to look all too different from anyone else.

He was a middle-aged man, short and stout. He compensated for his baldness by shaving his crown and compensated for his large nose with a thick mustache. He had, evidently just gotten off of work if his light blue shirt for "Freddy's Fix-a-Flat" was any indication.

Template adapted from Silv.

[Rift]

In a darkened corner of the bar, Logan sat, a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the table. He kept his cowboy hat dipped low, shadowing his eyes further, as he took a swig. The bar was a hole in the wall like thousands of others that Logan had visited over his long life, the kind of place where a person could disappear for a time and everybody around them was likely too busy hiding from their own sins to trouble themselves with the wrong doings of others. It was the kind of place that despite having the mandatory 'No Smoking' signs still stunk of cigarettes and cigars, even in this day and age.

Leaning back in his chair, listening to the final haunting notes of a Johnny Cash classic, he tried to no avail to forget.

It's funny. Spent my whole life tryin' to remember things and now I'd give anything not to, he thought.

His return to the mansion following everything that went down with Apocalypse was less than smooth. Many of his fellow X-Men looked at him, justifiably, as a threat that could go off any moment. After Apocalypse had turned him into the killing machine War, he'd done a lot of bad, and despite the understanding and compassion of Jubilee and even Cyclops, he didn't forgive himself. Even after the Christmas bash thrown by Carol Danvers and the perhaps not so unexpected return of Jean, he didn't feel right.

We all figure she'd come back. Always does eventually. Doesn't change that I'm the one who took her out of the land of the living this last go 'round. And she's different. She's Jean, but she's not and given what we've all had to endure from an unbalanced Phoenix before, there's no tellin' what's gonna happen. And that, that's on me too.

Consequences coming back around were a definite theme these days. Turned out he had a son. Maybe. He still couldn't fully wrap his head around it, but that Daken punk sure believed what he was spewing and his powers? His attitude? Yeah, that was as close to looking in a mirror as he could get.

He took note of newcomers entering the bar. Didn't pay them too much attention. One smelled of perfume and leather and the kind of mistakes he'd of had no problem making just a few years back.

Have enough rotten luck going around these days though. I just want a drink, to be left alone, and then I'll be on my way, he thought, knowing that such statements usually preceded disaster.

[jade]

Jade watched on as various souls entered and exited the bar, so far none of them where her target. She saw a mechanic getting off his shift or so she could only assume as he was still in uniform.There was a man with a cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes, it wasn’t fooling Jade though. His body language told his story and all she needed to do was see him to know he carried a burden. So many people in this world carried one Jade had gotten used to shutting them out, but there was something about that man that almost made her want to help him. In another time and place she might have at least tried, but right now her target had just entered the bar. Jade motioned to the bar tender for another drink as the target approached the bar, tonight was Jades lucky night the man, who was wearing clothes of a normal street level thug, but had an aire of arrogance was buying the bar a round of drinks. He stood near her as she approached him. Jade purposely appeared innocent.

“Celebrating something tonight?”

She knew what he was celebrating, rounding up humans so they could be sold to the highest bidder, but this was part of the hunt. He looked up at her with eyes of desire and smiled a flirtatious but dangerous smile.

“Well must be my lucky night I seemed to have gained the attention of a lovely lady.”

Jade stopped herself from rolling her eyes at him. Instead she just elbowed up to the bar and ordered her drink, after all this guy was buying his first and last round. Jade leaned on the bar and faced the man.

“I’d say luck has nothing to do with tonight.”

The man attempted to grab his drink off the bar top, but in the process “accidentally”knocked into Jade lightly. What he was distracting her from was the liquid he ever so lightly poured into Jade’s drink. The hunter was now becoming the prey. Jade knew he was a part of the ring of trafficking, pretty high up in the ranking,but she didn’t know is that he was also a vampire and tonight Jade was his mark. He spoke to her apologetically.

“Sorry about that, it’s starting to get pretty crowded here.”

He seemed sincere in his apology. For a moment Jade was taken off guard as she took a sip of her drink. The elixir inside going unnoticed as Jade was not a trained spy or assassin she was just a hunter of bad people and learning still the tricks of the trade. She spoke to the man, her bodies ability to metabolize faster working in her favor as most people would have been hit a lot harder by what was put into her drink.

“Yeah it is a bit busy in here, but it is a Friday night.”

Jade felt her body relax a bit more, but not enough to let her guard down fully. She was alerted to this immediately though as typically she could handle her liquor and right now her 1.5 drinks felt more like 3. She blinked for a moment as she felt the man lightly caress her arm. Jade was not comfortable with the touch and her body language definitely screamed that. She looked at the man, wanting to scream “look Mr. Mc feely’s you mind backing off.” Instead of losing her mark Jade nonchalantly attempted to walk away as the man spoke softly near her ear.

“ Come on now I wasn’t trying to scare you away. Let me buy you another drink.”

Jade felt the man now gripping her arm, any other time that would have been the first and last mistake he made, but Jade was trying to keep a low profile and her mind wasn’t feeling to clear suddenly.

I-I uh need some fresh air…I’ll be back now don’t you worry.”

She moved away from him just as his grip let go of her arm. Jade made her way out of the bar. She moved out of the doorway and steadied herself against a brick wall. The man casually followed her out. Pretending he was a good guy he walked over to her.

“Ms. Are you ok, can I call you a ride or sum thing?”

Jade used her hand to waive him off, now pretending to be me in a much more altered state then she was. Truth was though she was in a slightly more altered state then she wanted to be.

“I’m ok just needed S-S-Some air, thanks I got it covered.”

Jade moved forward but found herself moving down an alleyway. In other circumstances this would have seemed like an accident, but this time it was no accident.