2953/Evening Calm

Evening Calm
Date of Scene:	17 August 2020
Location:	Gramercy Park
Synopsis:	Some citizens do a walk in the park and chatter about serious business and not so serious foods and maybe a measuring contest. Who knows.
Cast of Characters:	Nessa Donovan, Julie Yan, Achilles, Chizue Nakamura, John Constantine

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Nessa Donovan has posed:
It's a quiet evening, for the most part, in that this part of town isn't teeming with people. There are those hurrying home for a late dinner or finally getting off work, dog-walkers, those just casually enjoying the evening air. Even still, they're few and far between leaving the area fairly calm and idyllic. The air, while warm, has a bit of a breeze to cool it. Overall: it's actually nice out.

Seated in the park, Nessa is currently occupying half a bench, though she's slouched a bit to rest her head on the back of the bench so she can look up at the sky. Were it not for the fact that she's in long sleeves and gloves, she could easily be just another person enjoying the evening.

Julie Yan has posed:
    The thrumming of a shitty moped announces Julie's arrival as she stops near the park. She's completely lost, as she tries to check her phone's GPS to little avail. "Stupid thing. Where _AM I_?" She asks, scratching her head. It doesn't look like central park to her at all. Sighing, she peels off her goggles and helmet before going to take a look around, exploring the park. "Hello? Anybody out?"

Achilles has posed:
    Why is Angelo in Gramercy Park? Well, he just met with a contact in the city. He stays out in Brooklyn, but was downtown for this meet up. Now, it wasn't the usual meet. Not something at a coffee house, or a dark alley. He met his contact at the contact's place of choosing. Namely, Shake Shack.
    But the contact left five minutes ago, and Angelo remained behind fir a bit to separate their departure times. Now Angelo steps out into the park wearing a NY Yankees ball cap, a Gold's Gym teeshirt, and bluejeans. Not exactly the black suit work uniform of the work-a-day SHIELD operatives.

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    Another day, another cell tower. With her own illicit hardware installed she leans back just a touch, not even so much as a shadow against the night's sky. She gives a glance down towards the park, before turning back to the work at hand. Peeling back layers of security that was a joke when it had been new, nevermind years on. Pulling down wireless connections and washing them through her own filters, flagging anything interesting and well she spots Julie's phone because of course she does.

    She unplugs her connections, before sliding back down to the roof and pausing to pull up her own wireless. A sweep of her gloved hand through thin air is enough, before she's off. Slipping over to the roof's edge to peer back down into the park.

John Constantine has posed:
There's a little rustle of cloth and a skinny blonde fellow drops heavily into the seat next to Nessa. It's just close enough to be slightly inside her personal space. A tan overcoat's held in his left hand, though there's no smell of rain in the air. The garment gets tossed over the back of the bench on his opposite shoulder from her. "What a day, eh?" Constantine's hips lift and he straightens his back to dig a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. Black slacks, black tie, white shirt; he looks like either a mortician or the world's most indifferent public accountant. A few slaps of the pack against his palm and a cigarette drifts out; it's plucked up in pursed lips and he cups the old Bic in his hand to light up.

"Been hopin' I'd stumble into you." He blows smoke from his nose and slouches even lower in the bench than Nessa, legs inconsiderately kicked out into the walking path and crossed at the ankle. Smoke blows from his nostrils like a dragon and he looks sidelong at the woman.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa leans carefully away from the intrusion into her personal bubble reflexively, though the sidelong glance in John's direction proves that she at least recognizes him. It does little to keep her from leaning slightly out of the way though. "I'm sure it's because of my winning personality. It's always the winning personality that keeps people coming back. Or the pancakes." She looks down at her gloved hands. "You're keeping the thing safe, yeah? It shouldn't cause any problems, it just needs to not end up in the wrong hands."

Is this a drug deal?

Julie Yan has posed:
    Julie blinks in surprise as she notices she's got a text from...Owari? That ninja chick from before. <How the hell did you get this number?> She texts back. <Actually, don't answer that. I think I can guess. You're not stalking me, are you?> She doesn't take long before noticing John and Nessa. She remembers them, vaguely, from the subway she thinks. John anyway, he's rather memorable in his generic handsome brooding English dudeness.

    "Hey, I remember you guys. You know Strange, don't you?" She asks Nessa and John. "I'm Julie, the finger-flame girl. Guess you guys wouldn't know how to get to Chinatown from here, huh?"

    She sends one more text to Owari: <At this point, I might need a new phone with all the people tampering with mine. Something that isn't gonna get hacked by mysterious ninjas and such.>

Achilles has posed:
    Speaking of his phone, Angelo fishes his out of his front jeans pocket and checks his texts. He smiles warmly and sends a quick reply before dropping the phone back into his front left pocket and reaching up to lift his hat just long enough to run a hand through his short hair before repositioning said hat back atop his head.
    Then his green eyes come up to view the park. He's not really up on magical entities or practitioners. Though those who can perceive such may feel a bit of passive power in him. Well, passive as in only internal. Anyone with deific ambrosia in his bloodstream and a neverending enchantment from the waters of the River Styx on his flesh isn't going to just... blend into the background, magically.

John Constantine has posed:
Interrupted! John's response to Nessa is put on hold when Julie Yan wanders up and he casts the girl a look of mild vexation. "Sure. Tube's over there," he says, pointing vaguely in the direction of a nearby subway terminal marker. He might be off by a bit but the gesture seems less helpful and more 'go away'.

He does look at Nessa again. "It's safe," he assures her cryptically. "I've been wanting to know what your involvement is. This is shaping up into a pretty narsty bit of nonsense and I feel like it's not getting better, sooner."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    <<No I am not stalking you, would you prefer I did? Phone wise, I can help but they're all just huge targets. Full of credit card information, search history, contact information.>>Theres a soft little Humm from out favorite ninja, before dropping down to sit on the edge of that roof. Slowly working out that sprain in her ankle with a slow series of circles.

    <<Anyway, you failed to answer my question. Know anywhere good around here, or am I gonna have to run all the way back to Little Tokyo? I forgot my Bento so, I'm a Ninja in an extremely dire situation of course.>>and a pause as she watches from afar. <<Whos that guy?>>

Nessa Donovan has posed:
The woman on the bench's head moves a bit so she can get a better view of Julie. Nessa blinks a few times. "I mean, /know/ is a very generous word. It's not like we have tea, but I've certainly met him." She seems momentarily amused at the prospect of being asked to tea. There's a moment where she pauses, glancing around the park. "Real meeting of the Ladies' Book Club today," she mutters, though it's clearly only for her own benefit. "Right, Chinatown. I'm kinda shit with directions, but I'm pretty sure you need to go all the way south... whichever direction south is from here." She's helpful.

John gets her attention again, though. "I'm stuck in the middle of it, mostly because I'm the latest in a string of people who didn't realize that if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. Guy we were looking for is actually the asshole causing it. Trying to use people and objects like batteries, centered around the palace." It's vague, but she's pretty confident John will get the picture.

Julie Yan has posed:
    <Uhhh, there might be a few places around but I dunno if they're open at this hour. It's getting pretty late.> Julie answers. She frowns, leaning against the tree. Nessa and John's conversation does draw a bit of curiosity from the martial artist. <Blond guy's John Constantine, he's...a guy. Think he's a wizard or something? I dunno the girl's name, but I've run into them before.> She texts again.


T"What batteries? What palace?" She perks up a little more, as she begins to unsubtly throw herself into another mystical misadventure.

Achilles has posed:
    Well, not like he is involved here, -or- knows anyone in the park, but Angelo has done his job for the evening. He nods to himself and begins moving through the park. The feel of being around others in this city always makes him smile. That, and the knowledge of what may or may not be waiting for him back home.
    There -is- a bit of an extra pep in his step though, that much is certain. So with that goofy smile on his face, and a bounce in his step, a man who is so far out of the time of his childhood that it is rather silly... just makes his way along.

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    <<Man I hate Wizards, unless they've got a beard they're always self important jackasses. It's the rule of witch hats, but for wizards you know. No beard means no chill.>>With that information, well she starts stripping through the network in a real hurry. Trying to pluck Constantine's phone out from every other wireless connection,sifting through code like sand on a beach.

    <<You should tell him the local used bookstore has a first edition Ars Goetica for like fifteen bucks, see if he goes for it.>>And a pause as she peers through code for a moment. <<Also you type entirely too slow, you need to work on that.>>

John Constantine has posed:
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"If this is all a sordid tale about some bloke breaking a bunch of hearts, I'm going to be sorely disappointed," John informs Nessa with a dry tone of voice.

The Julie's prying into the conversation again and he exhales wearily and gives her an exasperated look. "Cor-- if you're going to poke your nose in and ashs questions, stop trimmin' the verge and at least come stand up here proper and learn a thing or two 'bout a thing or two," he bids her.

John draws heavy on his cigarette, enough to ash a quarter inch of it, and looks back to Nessa. A half-assed attempts' made to exhale smoke out the corner of her mouth, away from her face. "Right, then, out with it. Wouldn't be the first time some magus decided to pop someone like a cork and drain 'em off. Is there an actual reason for it or is he just nutter?"

Achilles has posed:
    That attempt to blow the smoke away from Nessa puffs it right out in the walkway just as a certain old man walks through the new cloud. A hand come up and he coughs as he mutters, "Bollux..." It seems his voice has the hint of an English accent of his own. One he has mostly abandoned, except for when he is caught off guard.
    "The stench.." he mutters as he shakes his head and stops moving forward to try to back out of the cloud of foul smelling cigarette smoke. "What is it that makes people think putting that shite into their lungs is a good idea?" he halfway asks barely aloud before turning to face John and Nessa. "Ma'am. Please forgive my rude tone." he says as he notices her.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Vague, but not vague enough. While Nessa's not fond of keeping it a secret, she'd rather make sure people are informed enough to know what /not/ to mess with. "Don't go to the ice palace. Still not sure if it's gonna just explode if we mess with it," she directs this towards Julie. "SHIELD has it closed off, so that should be a good indication not to go throwing fire around everywhere, okay?" Better safe than sorry. She's been concerned about 'heroic types' flinging themselves into things without knowing what's going on.

She wrinkles her nose at the smoke, but sits up fully, turning just slightly to look at John. "Here's why I've got. Asshole necromancer wants to summon something or he already has and needs to cover up his mistake. So he collects a bunch of mages who are just looking for a teacher and tries to set them all up as batteries at different locations, most of which seem to have some kind of magic item at." She winces slightly. "He took a kid in because he was unhappy with his living situation and he's just been feeding off of him." She stops, her head slowly turning to notice Angelo there. Well that's not awkard. "Uh, no, no need to apologize."

Julie Yan has posed:
    Julie shrugs a shoulder. "GUess so." She wanders over, and looks -offended- (not really) at Nessa. "I'll try and restrain myself." She says. The martial artist tilts her head, listening. "Guy sounds like a dick, sounds about right for necromancers I guess." Wow, rude.

    She also texts Chizue again, <You might be right about the wizard thing. I'm magic and even _I_ keep running into the weirdos and psychopaths.>

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    <<Of course I'm right, It's a terrible curse.>>And with that she's off! A leap and a swing, and bit of scrambling down the building and she hits street level. From there it's only a hop and a skip cross the street and into the park proper where she slows considerably. She's hard to see out in the open when it's dark, but settled into a tree's shadow she might as well be invisible.

    <<Witches are cool if they wear the hat, otherwise they're nuts. They're all just punks with power, no discipline.>>And a pause as she watches for a moment. <<Also don't look, but I'm being you.>>

John Constantine has posed:
John eyes the phone in Julie's hands as she continues to text while the conversation between him and Nessa continues. "Bloody Yanks," he mutters dourly, and drags heavy on his cigarette. Angelo's observations are met with an up-swung V of two fingers and a deliberate lungful of smoke blown in his direction. "Free country innit, mate? Take your opinion and jog on."

He turns back to Nessa. "This asshole have a name? Aura? Some kind of sigil? Can't do much to wrangle a chap like that without knowing who's pulling the strings. 'less you want to keep dangling bait in front of him until he gets clumsy and gets caught red-handed."

Achilles has posed:
    "Yep. You truly are free to run anyone else's day. The sad truth about it 'n all." admits Angelo as he shakes his head. "Free to be as much of a git as you like too."
    And then Angelo turns to regard Nessa and states, "Please do not blame the entire male gender for the piss poor git representin' us to you ma'am." He bows his head to Nessa and steps back three long paces. "Free country indeed. Free to smell like you -want- to be left alone even while you impose your presence upon others." he adds.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Yeah, he's definitely an asshole. I don't like being personally targeted and I can get over that, but the kid's sweet. The kid cares. No one should do that to him," Nessa says, then turns her attention towards Angelo. "That's very sweet, thank you, but I've met worse than him in half-a-dozen pubs. Just cause he can be a jerk doesn't make him the worst jerk. I'll do my best not to judge him too much." After all, she does remember some choice words thrown in her direction before.

But John asked a question, so she turns a bit towards him again. "Jianyu Vega. He came in pretending to be the 'second best ice sorcerer in the world' and he was pretty impressive. But, according to what I've found to be a reliable source, he doesn't have a body anymore. His soul's somewhere, and I'm pretty sure whatever went wrong with whatever it did is what's causing all the trouble. I don't know what it is, but I know it's going after the students and whatever objects they're looking after."

Julie Yan has posed:
    UH oh. Cockfight's on. Julie just gives John a grin, "I'm as American as you are, buddy. Hong Kongolese born and bred." She says with a smirk, as she watches Angelo and John get all flinty eyed at one another.

    <Tell me you're getting this.> She texts.

    "I dunno if I know that name. I could check with some of my sifu's writings, I've still got them at home but it'd be a while. He was a magic user too, and he did his best to keep me hidden from other wizards. Said most of them weren't any good." Julie pauses. "...err, no offense to present company or anything."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    <<I'm like three feet away.>>She leans back to rest an armored shoulder against a conviently located tree to watch, and start running names through her own Haga-net. <<I should have brought small bills if I knew we were going to a cockfight, or is that a strip club I forget?>>

John Constantine has posed:
"Oh so it's not just Yanks toddling around with their noses buried in their phones," John tells Julie. "Good t' know."

There are a lot of spectators to this conversation and it's clearly irritaitng John. He ashes his cigarette lazily in Angelo's direction and takes another drag off it. Smoke follows the direction of the ash.

"Vega. Name sounds familiar but I can't put a face to it offhand." John digs in his jacket for a notepad and pencil, writes it down, and tucks both into the loose breast pocket of his dress shirt. "'Came in', to wot? The city? A little knitting club for hedge witches? Big shift from cryomancy inter stealing souls, especially if he's the sort of bloke who thinks anyone gives a shite about that sort of speciality."

Achilles has posed:
    "Now I -am- shocked. The fact that this is git is better behaved than -anyone- you have met makes me weep for your poor fortune ma'am." offers Angelo. Sure, he heard SHIELD mentioned, but it wasn't like.. kill all SHIELD. or whatnot. Just an observation about them. And it seems everyone here values what the assbag has to say. Well, everyone but Angelo. Rude folks tend to make him simply leave when they start in on folks. HE wasn't always like that, but now he doesn't -like- to try to start conflicts. So he just bobs his head and turns to depart.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"If you've got research materials, by all means, though I doubt Vega's what we need to look up. Whatever he wants to summon or messed up summoning, that's what's the problem." Nessa glances Julie's direction before looking back to John. "He was established in the city already when I met him. He showed up and made that whole ice palace while I was standing there." She lets her gaze move to Angelo with an amused smirk. "Trust me, fortune's never really been on my side. Sort of a bit of a trend, I've noticed." In more ways than one.

"Anyway, I don't know why he's dabbling in both. A cover? But he's definitely summoned or joined with something that uses both. All the ice is corrupted, and there's weird ice skeletons, and some of the stuff in the palace certainly felt more like necromancy. The students aren't all focused on ice, but ice is what he was teaching. Constructs."

Julie Yan has posed:
    JUlie just smirks. "I got someone who's _really_ persistent about texting me!" She says mock-defensively. Proving John's point, she ends up texting something again. <It's not really -my- scene. If I wanted to see a catfight I'd watch reality TV or UFC, or just check twitter.> She messages, with a playful :3 emoticon and everything.

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    <<See the beard thing was totally correct, It's a curse always being right about everything. I ruin movies for myself all the time.>>Exhaling softly finally as that camo fades out, though perfect matte black isn't really a substantial improvement. Now at least she cuts a silouette though, which is something right? "You wanna do American Chinese, or I know this killer Vietnamese place on the other side of town. I kept looking for nearby but all these places look terrible."Offered casually to, well it's to Julie but who can tell with those electric filters she's talking through?

John Constantine has posed:
John gets to his feet and digs a business card out of his pocket. It's held between two fingers and extended to Nessa. On it is just 'John Constantine', a land-line number, and an address in black print. No identifier of business or title, but it does radiate a subtle magical glamour to it. He flicks his cigarette dismissively in Angelo's direction as the man withdraws.

"Little crowded for a talk tonight," he tells her. "But this is some serious shite and I don't like being in the dark about such things. Drop by my place or let's find some bar with a decent threshold and we'll get to the raw details over it. I don't want to be blindsided."

The matte-black ninja gets a wary, sidelong look as Julie and Chizue link up, and he shakes his head in exasperation at both of them.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa takes the business card with a gloved hand, tucking it away in her jacket. "I know a place," she offers. "They haven't kicked me out yet and /that's/ a surprise." The drink suggestion sounds much better than anything at this point. "I'll give you a call, I'll try and elaborate on what I've got. It's unfortunately less than I'd like, but... it's getting complicated and I'd like all the help I can get."

Julie is given a smile. "Just don't go punching anything icy unless it's a snake or a skeleton, okay?" Nessa does look serious. "It's a nasty mess of magic right now and I'd prefer not to blow up the city."

Julie Yan has posed:
    "I'll do my best to avoid setting anything on fire if I can help it, yes." Julie says playfully. "With that, I'll see you guys later. I've got-" THen she yelps as she sees Chizue IS in fact right behind her. "Aaah! Jesus, I thought you were kidding! Or posted up in a tree or something..." She shakes her head. "Anyways....hope you got a change of clothes or something, I doubt the local places are gonna be happy seeing a walking ginsu walk in. I _think_ I saw a decent pizza place around here that's open late, we might be able to make it if we hurry."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "It's only a problem if they see me."She retorts, before with a snap of the fingers? Shoooo she fades away into the darkness oncemore. "Pizza though, I thought Pizza was bad for Chi circulation or something because of the way it's cut?"And well with that, just as casual as a Ninja can she strolls off with Julie.