13506/Devil Went Down to Rio

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Devil Went Down to Rio
Date of Scene: 09 December 2022
Location: Brazil - Ipanema Beach
Synopsis: Mephisto is run off and Tabitha, Illyana, Kathryn and Sam help Berto analyze the Data and come to conclusions about who is sabotaging DI and what are the next steps. Even a path forward regarding the contract Mephisto has with Berto's Dad.
Cast of Characters: Roberto da Costa, Samuel Guthrie, Tabitha Smith, Illyana Rasputina, Kitty Pryde




Roberto da Costa has posed:
Rio, at Christmas, home to some of the most beautiful beaches, and the best beach weather in December. 86 degrees and sunny with 70 degree water. A great time for friends to reconnect in the sands of Ipanema beach, especially when one of them is dealing with a sudden and catastrophic change of life... or not but here is where Berto is, dressed in beach attire if he doesn't seem entirely in the festive mood. He look a bit like Kitty on vacation with a small pile of Tablets on his table as he goes over recent events with a furrowed brow, 'Huntington's? He. had. Huntington's? And he never told us, never though it was worth mentioning? And- now, now it turns out he sold what little soul he had left for more time healthy?" Yes, there is a actual devil under the umbrella next to the group, Mephisto, Yana's frienemy and sometimes antagonist of the New Mutants, "He is impossible, impossible, there is no worse Father than mine." Berto shakes his head, "And now in the middle of all this you want to collect?"

    The red-skinned fiend sips a fruity alcoholic beverage with a grin, "Actually, it's a bit of a seller's market currently. I was looking to make you a deal. heroes souls are going for quite a bit these days... "

     Roberto frowns, "Seriously? I'm taking over a multibillion dollar company and tring to figure out if this accident was an accident at all and you want me to consider selling my soul to you?!" People are starting to look which no one really wants, right?

Samuel Guthrie has posed:
Sam Guthrie has stepped away to get drinks he comes back over with a tray with a drink for his friends, not one for Mephisto. He is wearing board trunks and seems to be trying to keep an eye out for other trouble but when there is a major trouble nearby it can be distracting.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
So when one of your best friends growing up gets in trouble with the fam, you totally have to front and fly the flag. So there you have one blonde, smelling maybe a little of citrus from some very nice insect repellant. A light gloss on her skin from sunblock she might not really need due to her powers making heat and stuff less of a problem.

Tabitha doesn't tan so much as freckle. Which is handy for avoiding tan lines. But tends to leave her looking like a dot to dot picture.

This does not deter her as she kicks back on a sunlounge she managed to haul, one of a few. Cause you just never know what might be lurking in the sand beneath.

It also gets everywhere.

Yellow string bikini with pink trimming around the edges peeks out from under an open short sleeved bowling shirt in yellow with black sleeves and red cutoffs. Some pink sandals on her feet match the leather spiky collar and wrist bands, not to mention the belt looped and slung via a single beltloop on her scant shorts.

Still clearly supporting Roberto the explosive blonde. And accepting a drink from Sam with a big smile.

Mimosas are life!

Of course when there's demonic interruptions from someone not Illyana, Tabby just eyerolls while shaking off the shorts.

"You know I'm pretty certain Illyana already has possesion of mine when I'm like dead and stuff. So I don't think I'm actually allowed to negotiate!" she states and makes sure her raybans, red frame and red tits sit on her nose while draping discarded daisydukes on the back of her sunlounge.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The Demon-Queen of Limbo is up on all the latest infernal gossip, as it's part and parcel of ruling over the place that touches on so many others. Besides, demons and devils love to chat. Her other job takes full advantage of information gathering and brokering. That one of the great powers of the damned happens to negotiate with Roberto isn't why she happens to be here.

It's clearly for the news and lounging beside Tabitha in style. Nothing entirely street legal in hand and worn, fitting in with the other Cariocas surprisingly well for an Arctic blonde. The sweating glass leaves a trail of beads splashing onto the ground, the caipirinha an alarmingly green shade.

"Did you neglect to tell him you already owe a debt on that?"

So speaks the woman who is in possession of two pieces of her own, and the other three-quarters belongs to someone even more powerful than her.

Her bare legs drink up the sunshine without threatening to burn, a benefit of the infernal proportions and a bit of a spell. Otherwise she will burn; she doesn't have bio-metallic skin, or thermokinetic ability to avoid such troubles. "After the business with Keller, I had no intentions of leaving those loose ends dangling. You cannot trust young people these days. They go and get self-sacrificing /all/ the time."

Teeth show in that perfectly smirk aimed blithely Tabitha's way. She gets it.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Though it wasn't necessarily a recreational trip, the warning they'd be going to the beach most likely had led Kitty to pick up a special holiday bikini. Red sparkly fabric, with a line of white on the inside of the top and at the top of the bikini bottoms has a very Santa sort of feel to it. She came in already a little tan from other trips, and during their downtime when they weren't able to help Roberto, she's added a little bit more to the tan.

Kitty Pryde looks over from where she's sitting, her drink untouched and her lips pressing together in a firm line as the devil tries to get Roberto to give up his immortal soul. Kitty's fingers go to the only thing she's wearing apart from the bikini... the Star of David that dangles from her necklace. "You know, I find myself wondering in this moment if I were to press this to your forehead how badly it would hurt. And if the answer turned out to be not at all, as I suspect, to then take it a step further and see how it feels if left another few inches deeper inside your head."

Her eyes go to Roberto. If he needed any admonition about agreeing to any offer of Mephisto's, the Jewish girl's look would do its best to ward him away.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa has not been sleeping much, taking in reports from all aspects of the buisness, feilding calls from business friends and rivals on the developing situation. Working with his Father's team to find out where everyting his while being in his own people to take over when things move in that direction and all this while fending off the pending takeover bid that everyone can see coming, the sharks are circling. Berto has a line on most of the stock he needs to defend the company. Well, as far as he can trust Emma, though he has a bit more faith in Warren and Charles if it comes to that. In fact each person sitting here is a repository of a rather large portion of DI stock in the moment. All purchased legally and above board a hedge against possible shenanigans from outside parties.

    Roberto gives Yana a small smile, thinking back to a Formal at the Xavier's school and a deal stroke over a late after party, the terms simple at the time and perhaps not fully thought out, "My soul for a Kiss." Still just children, there is a faint blush to Berto's cheeks as he gives Yana a sidelong glance, "I didn't think that was binding?" He laughs and then leans over to give Kitty a kiss on the forehead, "You heard my team Mephisto, Kick rocks." His voice is firm, "And I looked over the contract, you're claiming this as an act of God to foreclose, I think it was an act of man, if it was and you didn't protect him... Your claim is forfeit." He voice is even and you all know that keeping the triumphant tone from it is killing Berto. He hands the contract on a tablet to Yana to inspect and takes a drink from Sam. Sipping the icey cold Coconut water he tips glases with each of you.

Samuel Guthrie has posed:
Sam Guthrie is quiet for now, there is not a lot he can add in situations like this. Instead he will loom. He is not as good a loomer as say Piotr or Guido, but he did learn from some of the best. He will sip his own drink once the others have theirs, standing to Berto's right.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
To be fair, while Illyana is an ex girlfriend, and Sam is in that list two and they and Roberto do look good in beach wear. Tabby still manages to have an eye for Kitty and the holiday styled bikini.

"Hey look, it's not so much self sacrifice as it is like you know, I need a wind up on my bigger blasts and sometimes that means getting caught in the open. Or falling from a great height.. Or there's a flimsy ass wall begind me or, someone else just charged a big explosion and I gotta bom as big if not bigger to shape and direct it." she pouts at her friends. "I mean I didn't die so I think that doesn't null and void anything." she goes on.

Tabby's hero time this year did kind of have a level of self destructiveness to it.

Unlike Sam, Tabby never shuts up when she probably should. So again her mouth kinda runs more than Noriko and Pietro combined.

"I'd have expect any soul sale to go south anyway. Heal his dad, somehow some random dude ends up shooting him. Got Berto over a barrel. Dick Move." she points out and sips her Mimosa.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Yana wears silver and blue hues differently than her usual black, though it's not like that bikini contains a great deal of material to work with. Look closely enough and the wraparound halter neck embodies the X of everyone's mutual affiliation. The mood remains bright under the summer sun, and for someone who embodies both sides of the Goth movement -- invasion by the sword, a love of pointy things and elaborate plans, and dark romantic -- she's plenty happy to suffer the bombardment in good company.

A clink of glass to glass invites both a toast and something else, the ringing reminder of others being at arm's length. Important when she is the quick get out of Dodge free card. Berto's solitary agreement rings in the silence of deeds and agreements.

Dryly asided to Kitty and Tabitha, given the range, "He has a proper attorney on retainer, da? Not that shabby, questionable one with the questionable ads? Go with someone like that and we'll all end up jailed somewhere in space." Oh, prophetic words. She tips her caipirinha back, lavish citrus tones sour and stormy from the crush of dark rum swirling around in there. The lime swirls around, savoured at length.

The worrisome question of who claims what souls is something she is mum on, but surprise, who wants to find out how many their local infernal sorceress has claimed? "Still better than Selene." More to herself than anyone else. Though she sits forward, tilting those mirrored black sunglasses higher.

Then the sharp, incisive Russian-tinged voice: "Are you keeping /strictly/ to the letter of the contract?"

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde relaxes more as Roberto seems to have no intention of taking Mephisto up on the offer. She smiles at Roberto at the kiss to her forehead. The cold drink is picked up and sipped. It's a fruity thing, some kind of red punch with more alcohol in it than one would believe tasting it, yet they blend together in a way so it doesn't taste that strong. Like Rio's punch version of a Long Island Iced Tea.

The squeal of a child draws Kitty's attention for a moment, but it's just someone whose brother took out her sand castle and now she's chasing him around with her little plastic shovel, trying to hit him. While her father grins and her mother glares at the father for encouraging the behavior with that grin.

"The holidays are so different here," says the girl clad in the bikini and with tanning oil rubbed into her skin to give it that extra nice luster. "Not that I mind, though the snow is kind of nice this time of year too."

She falls silent at the talk about the contract. Just the thought of the thing leaves Kitty looking like she feels like she needs a shower.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa frowns at the mention of Murd Blurdock, "Hey, he got us out after that crazy night with Lila. We could still all be breaking rocks on Rura Penthe." He remarks a bit sullenly but not without levity. As he watches Mephisto pick up what's left of his dignity at the 'letter of the contract' muttering something about Xavier's brats under his breath as he walks away down the beach kicking at the water instead, though he can be heard stroking up a conversation with a pretty young woman carrying cigarettes along the surfline, she's a local and he smiles, "You know those things will kill you." She responds, "Si Senor, ut they not for me, they are for my Mama." Him again, "Are they? You know I might be able to help you with that." And we leave that conversation to posterity.

    Berto has his nose back in the tablets as he hands them to the group, "Kitty, can you look over these numbers, something in this spreadsheet isn't right and I cannot see it. Tabs, these were the elements in the blast residue, I know demolitions are only a hobby but does this look like an industrial accident to you? Sam, here are the four most likely suspects. I've looked over their iteneraries but I can't find out how they had time to stop at the Recife site. You also have the travel documents for their each of their top assistants. And dear sweet Yana, thank you, but seriously do you see any holes in the contract? Is Daniel Webster still around?"

Samuel Guthrie has posed:
Sam Guthrie will take the info he is given, and finds a seat. He starts going over the information and says "Have you been able to look into their spendings, lately? I mean, if they are cocky enough might even be on a corp card or something." He hmms and continues reading over them, sipping his drink occasionally. Sam is actually switching over to cop mode.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
"My money is on little sister upsiding the brother and burying him!" Tabby adds with a wink to Kitty when the blonde follows the brunette's attention. They never did find out if non christian religious symbols ever work, or if it's like gotta be mutual. Jewish Vampire and Star of David to match the usually expectant thing.

It may kind of be part of why there's leather and metal spikes around Tabitha's neck and wrists. She may trust Jubilee, but not so much her minions.

The mention of Space Jail gets a giggle. "Space Jail wasn't too bad. The jumpsuits are still orange, they itch and irritate which is worse cause they didn't let me wear underwear. Those guards can be more paranoid than some the shittier cells I've been in. And it smells like farts in Space. Recycled air." she complains.

It wasn't long, and she wasn't mistreated.

The departing Mephisto gets an eyeroll when the demon stops to do his thing again with some random. "He was in a bind, cause he's way behind, and he was willing to makje a deal." she sings a certain song lyric and grinning as she thickens her Virgina accent just shy of Sam or Rogue's.

The reports on the stuff in the explosion get a bit of a blank stare. But she does eye some of the visuals taken post explosion.

"I did plenty of demoloition work on Genosha cleaning up from the uprising. I'd kinda have to see things in Three Dee. Chemicals alone won't always be enough. You gotta look at placement. Faking an accidental explosion is gonna need some Rube Goldberg placing. Is there any like security footage of where evberything was. I can maybe kinda punch up a sim in the Danger Room. Holodeck Forensics and stuff!" she suggests with a grin.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana barely needs to review the contract on the tablet, though she will read it with the typical sharp eye usually reserved for tactical advances or plans penned by one Mr. Summers of the Scott variety. Skimming rarely does anyone large favours, but she looks for a particular inclusion and the assorted language.

"You go with strict interpretation," she opines around the rum-saturated drink in her hand clinking softly, "then the onus is on him to prove it was God's direct act. You could claim the principle of free will would make direct involvement by God, strictly /your/ god, impossible. Catholic? Then the Christian god, different from Yahweh if Kitty is involved." A nod to their esteemed Kate, of course. "Different than if you worship me or your father signed with act of Thor or something. If Christian God, why would He interfere? More, prove it was Him. You could have a lengthy argument about predetermination or predestination. Depends on your court room and judge, but that's a loophole open to you. He wants to split hairs, I say split atoms."

The drink is still half full and they have hours to go. "Space jail is overrated. I liked space centre of the universe except for the angry crystal."

An aside: "Kitty, you are becoming a forensic accountant? Good income in that."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde takes the tablet from Roberto. She begins looking it over, occasionally sipping her drink. Though the spreadsheet has most of her attention. After a few minutes Kitty grumbles something under her breath and taps a few commands, then reaches for her bag beneath her chair. She pulls out her own tablet and activates it, then touches it to the tablet of Roberto's. She locks his tablet again and passes it back, and continues working on the tablet of her own design and fabrication.

Kitty chuckles and shakes her head. "Only a poor man's one, Illy. For the finances, Roberto, you really need a forensic accountant. Like Ben Affleck's character in The Account," she says. "What I can do in the short term, is run some numerical analyses looking for patterns that don't fall into normal random distributions. People tend to use certain numbers more than others when making them up, how many times they occur. Not to mention whether there are changes in the patterns that are caused by real business factors, over time that stand out." She does a bit of typing and says, "Ok while that's going on I can look up some of the details on the equipment at least."

She gets another big sip of her drink. "Lord but these are good. Going to have to get the recipe. And turn me into a lush in the process." Another sip and then back to work.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa smiles at Kitty, "Hasn't she mentioned? Our Kate is now working for Stark. They found about some hacking she had down and offered her a job. And she didn't turn them down, like she did me." He chuckles and nods, "I have a whole department Kate but when I don't know who I can trust I need to rely on my own people. And you are the smartest one in the room KitKat, never let them tell you different." He nods and gives Sam access to their money and personals letting the man fade into the background and do his cop work." He listens to Yana and smiles, nodding, "That is a brilliant idea, yeah, I can at the very least tie it up in court indefinitely while Dad get a chance to heal. Obrigado, Mrs. Strange. He is very lucky." Berto smiles easily and sips his drink, nodding, "I can get you all that. Okay, thank you Tabitha. You sell yourself short."

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabby tries following a bunch of the theological stuff Illyana goes on with and hmms. "Think it gets kinda muddy when the Christian God is the same guy as the Jewish one cause like Jesus was Jewish, and it only gets muddy cause the New testament was totally just the ancient equivalet of Italians writing Chuck Norris Jokes and taking it too seriously." she suggests "Chuck 3:16. His tears cure cancer. Chuck has never cried." she adds.

Theological contract law might have been a struggle. But math, accountinh, and money finally beat the blonde and she just stares with a slack jawed expression. And not just in that wowed look when Kitty and Illyana showd off their swimsuits. This is a woman that struggled to graduate High School at twenty and vowed never again.

"There's scant few things I'm fantastic at. This is kinda tied for top of the list." she states and gives Yana a wink being the only one around at the momenrt that knows the other thing. Sam had gone to do his big brother thing like probably go and wrangle food or something or is calling to start his chunk of investigation.

So Illyana gets the whole wink without having to share.

The documentative tablet is handed back and there's a hmm. "Remind to make sure the safeties are back on when I do run the sims for ya 'Berto. Gonna be frustrating giving up BOOM time for this but not the first time."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"I rule a domain and wage war against incursions from the invisible world," Illyana gives a flat response. Not a flat tone of voice, but one acknowledging something instead of getting on -- or off -- a high horse. "These consume me from celebrating the life changes of my friends. For which I owe you another round of drinks."

However they got them in the first place, she isn't abandoning her lounger for it. Rather she can have them teleported over, or just look pointedly unblinking at a server long enough for them to figure out she's up there, and yes, more drinks. No snappy fingers either.

For a dry tone, she says to Tabitha, "Considering I am supposed to summon the end times through several of the old gods, they split hairs. Matters with god this or god that matter a little more strongly when they like to show up on my doorstep and complain about the service." Black-lipped smile, sharp as glass, elevates her opinion on that to something fierce.

She hands back her own tablet. The contract language isn't sound enough to bypass a few holes. "I'll let him know your opinions. Now we all need to storm the beachfront or clean up a favela. There must be something exciting we can do with another drink. Something on the shore. Do you know if there is an evil base under the Redeemer statue?"

Kitty Pryde has posed:
There's a refill of Kitty's drink that happens while she's still going through things. "Oh, thanks. Yes. I sort of hacked the NYC power grid to fix some issues they had. They were keeping a Stark green energy project in Bushwick from working. Didn't hack Stark, just, gave them a helping hand. But apparently Rogue watched 'Hot Fuzz' from that particular cloud system I was using for it, while I was out for the day. And they tracked it back to the school through that." She chuckles and shakes her head. "So I owe Rogue for the job in a way."

She takes another sip and then gets a curious look. "Some of this equipment going to this desalinization plant, I can't find any reason such a plant would need it, Roberto," Kitty tells the Brazilian. "Let me go through more of the equipment li-"

She's interrupted by a chirp from her tablet that pulls her attention down to the results of the machine learning algorithms she ran. "Huh," she says, and then does more typing. And it's another five minutes of typing and chewing her bottom lip before she seems to ready share more.

"So, there's some odd patterns. It will take some more time to dig into, but... what I'm seeing... there's these cash distributions to vendors. And similar amounts coming back in, if in different amounts but totaling the same, from another company. And it happened three times for this division with three different pairs of companies. Then stopped there, but this division then had the same thing happen twice. Seems like someone is funneling corporation money out to shell companies, then bringing it back in so it counts as profits and the money paid out is tax deductible as depreciation of CapEx. I can trace through to find the ownership of the shell companies but it will take a while. I got five layers deep and still wasn't to the bottom yet."

Kitty taps a bit more on the keyboard. "And the VP in charge of the first division... left it and got a promotion to the second division. At which point the strange money trail started happening with that division, Roberto," she says. She sends a break down of the figures over to him. "Looks like he's worked his way up the company. I didn't look at anything in his past before that. But, forensic accountant, I'd sick someone on that stuff."

Kitty can't help but glance over at Illyana at the mention of what her life has become. Maybe she forgave Kitty for losing her grip on Piotr's young sister those many years ago, and maybe Kitty has even forgiven herself. But it doesn't mean the reality of Illyana's life doesn't sometime give Kitty pangs for how it went that way.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa takes back the tablets and slips them into a satchel, he will most probably have them scrubbed and leave them on the beach for the locals, it's not much but even one of these can feed a family for a month. He pinches his brow and shakes his head, "Carmichael... it has to be Carmichael, the son of one of Dad's oldest associates. He's the newest of the old guard likes the way the company used to be run and isn't in line with the ethical business model we've been embracing since Dad brought me in... it all comes back to the Huntgingdon's that's why he started making the changes wanted me back in the business." Berto shakes his head, "Well, now we start fighting back."