1976/The Bavarian Standoff

The Bavarian Standoff
Date of Scene:	05 June 2020
Location:	The Bavarian Alps
Synopsis:	Cheetah and Mystique get off to a rocky start, but soon take a liking to each other.
Cast of Characters:	Barbara-Ann Minerva, Raven Darkholme

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Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
The Bavarian Alps, close to Germany's border with Austria, have long been a tourist mecca. It's an odd locale for a safe house but, then, that's the point.

For reasons that are completely unimportant and probably related to charitable work in some fashion, Cheetah, Wonder Woman's most famous (and fabulous) nemesis, needed somewhere to cool her heels. The Calculator, a noted information broker and 'service provider' among super villains, had made hasty arrangements from his remote headquarters for Cheetah to stay the night at this location. Alone. And all by herself. But something has gone wrong.

"Who the devil are you?" As the dying rays of the setting sun start to vanish from the quaint four-pane windows, Cheetah is standing battle-ready with her claws out. She's only just arrived. How could things have gone so wrong, so quickly?

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Standing in the saferoom is a rather tall red haired woman, she looks up from her spot on the couch and eyes the sudden intruder in her hide out. Standing up quickly and giving a shimmy of her mutable skin on her back, Raven reasures herself that the semi automatic pistol is in the impromptu holster of the hem of her skirt.

    "I could be asking you the same thing." Mystique notes, her blue skin taught and muted in the off yellow lighting of the safe house. Mystique's white dress hugs her form and she blinks at Cheetah with her empty yellow eyes.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
The toes of Cheetah's right foot, the one furthest back, curl inward allowing their claws to find purchase in the chalet-style wood flooring. She needs to ensure some traction. Calculations are made. Mystique is less than 20 feet away. With her super-speed, Cheetah could cross that threshold in micro-seconds. But one has to be cautious.

To use Cheetah's inner vernacular, there's clearly something 'wrong' with Mystique: blue skin, blank eyes, and no visible reaction upon coming face to face with a six-foot, bipedal cat. Who knows what Mysti is capable of? She's either an agent from one of the 'alphabet soup' agencies on Cheetah's trail or...

"Calculator..." Cheetah mutters in disgust, just loud enough for Mystique to hear. "You've screwed it up." The thought crosses Cheetah's mind that Calculator might have set her up. Or set up this blue intruder.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    "Calculator... that weasely son of a bitch." Mystique says, turning on one heal to give Tigra a vew of her profile, as she lifts a hand to her chin to ponder the ramifications. "He sent you here, didn't he?" The blue mutant asks, lowering her white gloved hand down to brush against her half exposed thigh and turns back to face Cheetah in full, seemingly not incredibly worried.

    "I assume he didn't know I was here, which means his intel is incomplete and he's beginning to get sloppy." Raven says, her vibrant red hair catching a bit of the breeze from the air conditioning vent overhead.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
As Mystique visibly relaxes it occurs to Cheetah's predator-brain that /now/ would be the ideal moment to strike. Again, however, caution rules the field: maybe Mystique is one of those people who explode when you touch them -- who knows? The fact that the other woman is as annoyed with Calculator as Cheetah is certainly helpful.

"Nobody sends me anywhere," Cheetah sniffs. "I go where I please." For an instant, she bonds with Mystie over their shared talent for bitching about other people. Like Mystique, Cheetah settles into a more casual posture; however, given her abilities, this tends to create a false sense of de-escalation. Her eyes narrow, "Why are *you* here?"

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    "Obviously I am wanting to not be found by anyone." Mystique says looking over at Cheetah and lowering her gaze to view the woman up and down. "Unique." Mystique critiques Cheetah before she crosses her arms beneath her chest and tilts her head back and to the side, "The same as you as I surmise, except I didn't ask anyone else to get a place set up for me, and I sure as shit didn't expect them to make it clean for me before I came in. Rookie mistake." Raven notes towards Cheetah before looking at the couch Mystique is standing next to, "Take a seat, I'm curious about you and would like to learn more. Without risk of you tearing me to shreds with those teeth and claws."

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
The corner of Cheetah's mouth (the unwise might call it a 'snout') twitches ever so. Most people she encounters don't invite her to get so close. Rookie mistake.

Raven's words claw at Cheetah's oversized ego like burrs. Her green eyes rake Mysti up and down and arrive at a conclusion of their own, "Unremarkable."

She plants her taloned paws firmly on her hips where her fingers drum impatiently. "I should throw you out a window on principle," Cheetah rumbles. She peers past Mystique to the bottle of expensive Merlot sitting open on an end-table not far from the couch, "However, you do appear to have decent taste in wine."

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    "You wouldn't and we both know you're not that stupid. Trusting of others too much, but not stupid." Mystique says as she moves to take the first seat and reaches to the coffee table to lift up the red solo cup that has her wine in it.

    Raven crosses her legs at the knee, mindful of the drape of her skirt and carefully maneuvers it to keep her modesty. "I didn't buy it, your friend did, I merely raided his cabinets and took the best option available." And then takes a small sip. "Come, pour yourself a drink and discuss, I have questions and I'm sure you do too. Lets start simple, names. I'm Mystique, and you are?"

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
"Scandalously sober," replies Cheetah. She abandons her tiresome 'battle pose' and strides gracefully across the room. She halts briefly near the cabinet to retrieve a wineglass before making her way purposefully over to the near-virgin bottle. From the look of things, Mystique has only just arrived herself -- there's plenty in the bottle.

Cheetah swirls the inky goodness in her glass before taking a muzzle full. "Mystique, you say? French?" Her Anglo-Saxon is showing along with a trace of a repressed accent. Her glass doesn't remain empty for long; she's already filling it anew.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    "Sure, we'll go with French." The blue hued woman says with a lift of her cup to take another small slip and then sets the plastic down on her thigh, holding the red cup with both hands, enjoyed the chill from the wine within. Mystique doesn't seem like she's bothered my Cheetah not answering her question in kind, but she does deal with people like Toad, or Fred and this, a woman with an animalistic type change, possible mutation, is obviously going to be a bit more primal in nature than the boys she usually works with. A welcome change either way.

    "A shot in the dark, but you seem awfully comfortable around a blue woman, you must get called a mutant constantly, and yet, I don't get that vibe from you..." Mystique muses as her hand starts to circle the brim of her cup, playing with it idly.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
Cheetah frowns, "I most certainly am not." Having herself, in any way, associated with a known under-class is tantamount to a slap in the face. "And I get called nothing of the sort." She holds her glass away from her body as she leans forward in a half-bow, "I am referred to as Ma'am or Mistress. Though the latter will cost you." Cheetah straightens herself, winks deviously, and finishes her second snoot of wine. In alcohol consumption, at least, she is outpacing Mystique with ease. Her gaze flits around the place. There's no evidence Mystique has anyone here with her.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Raven smirks at that, "Oh, so you think I'm beneath you simply by being different..." Mystique coos calmly, looking to Cheetah and then bowing slightly while still seated herself, "Mistress, cute. Cute." The mutant lifts her glass once more to again simply take a sip. "Do, drink as much as you'd like. Calculator is paying, as well he should for being such a nitwit."

    Mystique does tilt her head once more, "So if you're not a mutant, how did you become the way you are." Mystque asks, with a gesture of her cup holding hand towards Cheetah, curling her drink in the cup as she does so. Curious.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
Cheetah gestures with her nearly empty glass, "Everyone is beneath me, dear. Different or not." Her pointed ears discreetly scan the room but detect nothing. An earlier 'sniff test' had yielded similar results. The pair are alone.

Mystique's inquiry recalls Cheetah's attention, "Hm? I was bitten by a radioactive tiger." Flippantly, she raises the open palm of her left hand skyward to punctuate the statement. Bare, fuzzy feet pad silently around to the front of the sofa. Cheetah deposits herself at the end furthest from Mystique and watches her closely. "You can't possibly be French." Cheetah nods to Mysti's criminally full glass, "You're positively dreadful at this."

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    "I'm not /from/ anywhere." Mystique says with a soft blink as she pulls her feet back away from the table, allowing Cheetah to get past to sit on the couch and yet, she then reaches her feet forward to rest on the table before them in a deep recline. She feels moderately safe, or at east. "Yeah, I'm the dreadful one..." Mystique then points at Cheetah with her cup again while not looking towards the fuzzy woman, "Tigers have stripes, not spots. You don't look a thing like that other girl." Raven then takes a sip as punctuation before looking back to Cheetah,

    "We're both obviously on the same side of the law, and this whole, proding and testing trust thing is rather old for me." Raven sighs and finishes her drink with a playful smack of her purple lips.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
The other girl? Are there other cat people out there? Inwardly, Cheetah makes a note to look into this more carefully and arches a brow. "I am, as you say, unique." A clawed hand expertly flips a curtain of long, read hair. She watches Raven finally -- FINALLY -- put that drink out of its misery.

With her own drink long dead and buried, Cheetah places the empty glass on a table nearest to where she sits, "I agree," she pronounces. "No more questions!" She crouches on the sofa like a gargoyle, her knees drawn up and close to her chin. Her long tail coils and uncoils itself in the air behind her. "The less we know about each other the better." An ugly thought raises its uglier head, "I don't suppose you were just leaving..?"

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Raven leans back into the couch and lifts her gloved arm up to rest on the back, reaching towards Cheetah but not getting anywhere close to touching the cat-woman. "Not at all, I need a couple days to lay low and catch a breather. It's been a busy week." The shapeshifter says and leans her head back far enough to look at the bottle of wine back behind them on the counter. "Could you be a dear and..." Mystique trails off, expecting Cheetah to be smart enough to know that Raven wants the bottle brought over.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
Cheetah once clawed a man for asking her to pass the salt. Luckily, for all concerned, on this occasion she's utterly distracted by Raven's answer and, dumbly, rises to fetch the bottle.

"Calculator, you pustulant little dwarf," she growls to nobody in particular.

In short order she arrives with the bottle near Mysti's place on the couch, "I am *not* sleeping on this!" She points an angry finger at the couch. "Furthermore," Cheetah idly turns her head this way and that to regard the room closely, "we may wish to examine this place for cameras." One of Calculator's many talents is surveillance. Two desperate women in close quarters with access to lots of booze. Do the math. "Calculator is nothing if not lascivious. The odds that we've been double-booked by accident is vanishingly slight." She folds her arms, "I'm going to kill him."

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Raven takes the wine and pours it meticulously into her cup and then leans forwards to reach over to Cheetah's crystal and fills it perfectly, setting the bottle on the table still open. She leans back and takes a short sip. "I wouldn't worry about cameras as such. I wasn't booked by Calculator, he doesn't know I'm here, and if he did, I've already worked outside and set up a small camera loop on the hardwired lines. Easy enough with a repeater, just like in Speed. Only the place was perfectly still. We just can't have you contact him while you're here." Mystique says with a tap of her nose and another sip. "Also, I'm absolutely not sleeping on the couch. I was here first. I've shared beds with harrier people than you, who were no where near as attractive as you." Raven winks one of those hollow yellow eyes.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
The obvious retort of, "The fact that you're squatting here while I paid good money for the privilege obviously means you get the couch," goes unsaid. Mysti has said the magic word: attractive. With Cheetah, flattery gets you everywhere.

"Very well," she says grudgingly. "Know that I'm not responsible for any personal damages, however." She works her claws in the empty air with no particular menace before making her way back to the glass Mystique has so helpfully re-filled.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Mystique's hand goes into the air and she makes the same clawing motion, her nails shifting on her azure hand to something much more animalistic like Cheetah's own. "You get the same warning." The shifter says with a playful smirk as her hand falls back down to her thigh and her nails have returned to normal. Normal for Raven. "What should I call you though. I'm not going to call anyone mistress or ma'am. You have a name, given, chosen or made up or whatever..." Mystique says, looking to the fuzzy girl with a strength to her words and voice, a stoicism Cheetah may not have seen often in her life.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
As she reclines on the sofa, Cheetah makes a disgruntled sound and thwacks herself in the forehead. Again with the questions! Slowly, her hand slides its way past her closed eyes, her nose, and then down her chin. Half in irritation and half in exasperation, she relents. "Cheetah," she says, her eyes still shut tight. "Cheetah: the one and only." She makes a desultory motion to tip an imaginary hat at Raven and reaches out, inviting her companion to clink glasses. "Pleased to meet your acquaintance."

The shape-shifting demonstration is acknowledged as by someone who has been in the game for too long and become jaded to such displays. "Aren't we a pair." The Merlot in Cheetah's glass is sent to its watery doom.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Mystiqe nods once at then gives a soft hmmm at Cheetah's name, "Not French I presume then." Raven teases as she taps her plastic cup against Cheetah's glassware and then downs her cup without hesitation and tosses the empty over the back of the couch onto the dining room floor. "What do you propose now? As I'm aware of it, German TV is beyond boring." Raven muses looking at the bland looking tv box that's been off in front of them the whole time.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
A rather unladylike snort of laughter erupts from Cheetah's muzzle. "No. Not French." She places her wineglass on the table nearest her and stares dimly at the inert television. The two sit in silence for several seconds. Cheetah turns her head toward Raven, "Shapeshifting, is it?" A pause. "I don't suppose you can manage something other than beastie claws?" Her own paws hover just above her lap as a form of unnecessary illustration.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
    Raven lifts her right eyebrow towards Cheetah and slowly turns towards the other villainess, "Of course. Though a personal request is going to cost you, Cheetah." Raven notes, wishing she had kept the cup in order to make a point, but she is sure her words will be sufficient enough to get the point across to the spotted one. "What is it you're curious about, I may indulge out of my own curiosity." The blue woman notes.

Barbara-Ann Minerva has posed:
A wicked smile pads its way across Cheetah's sinister mouth. "Money is no object," she hisses. Cheetah taps the twin claws of her index fingers together while inwardly assembling the pieces of her revelatory scheme. She reaches for her empty glass, having had the perspicacity to keep it handy. "I believe I have a proposal for you."

Cheetah bounds effortlessly over the back of the sofa and makes tracks towards the liquor cabinet. Along the route she pauses to retrieve Raven's discarded cup from the floor. She returns in a flash with a bottle of brandy -- the first thing her questing hand encountered -- sloshing some into the cup before thrusting the vessel into her companion's hand. She seems giddy with some unspoken delight, "Let's talk business..." Somewhere, Wonder Woman's ears are probably burning.