330/Oh he did, did he

Oh he did, did he
Date of Scene:	06 March 2020
Location:	Library
Synopsis:	Doug, Illyana, and Berto hatch a plan.
Cast of Characters:	Douglas Ramsey, Illyana Rasputina, Roberto da Costa

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Douglas Ramsey has posed:
Doug is at the School today, currently in the library, reading and taking some notes -- the fact that he's reading Ancient Hyborian might cause some curiosity, even for those whose personal library contains a copy of the Scrolls of Skelos -

But Doug seems a little bit cross about something as he puts his pen in his mouth and flips pages. Somebody watched that rally, and he's had a little bit of a frowny face ever since.

All he said about it, when pressed, is a surly "*Betsy yelled at me*." Real mature.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
'A few minutes ago' is, in fact, several hours. The sky splits out of nowhere beyond, thunder marking the bizarre transition between winter and spring in the city. Rain drums down on Salem Center same as New York, pouring wrath down onto the grounds and keeping the order restored among the children. It isn't a beautiful day to speak of, unless someone finds the overcast skies and eerie mists flowing around from sublimating snowbanks beautiful. At least one of them does.

A black katana hilt rides over Illyana's hip, the folded up black nylon around the likely blade present. It's enough to make someone mighty uncomfortable looking at it, possibly. Possibly not. Her coat gleams with a slick finish, and the same patina of the rainfall captured by a short jaunt or long walk through every last squall from here to Novosibersk gives that opulent umbra sheen. If anyone fears water tracked into the library, worry more about the umbrella-sword than not.

She's missing a go bag or eight, but up one cup of coffee. The paper cup has a conspicuously odd logo associated with a New Orleans cafe. That means the box tipped on her fingers is the real damn thing when it comes to beignets, which means in turn they're loaded with the bakery herpes of the cooking world, powdered sugar.

Five steps and the box drops next to Doug.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Next into the library is Roberto da Costa, the Brazillian is dressed in jeans and a burgandy and green Fluminense FC jersey, that matches the pair of Jordans he's wearing. Spotting Illy and Doug, he heads there way. "Just the couple I was looking to find," he glances to them both "You are a couple right? My efforts weren't wasted? Anyhow, Sam may have stepped in something big with his new girl and we're probably going to have to save her life."

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
Doug takes the pen out of his mouth, and opens the box. He puts the beignet into his mouth, all at once, and chews it. "Foo know I'm not fupposed to eat fhese," He says around it as he chews, "My calorie consumption isn't like your guys's-" Another one vanishes into his mouth, "Ib on a frict dfhiet--"

Lots of salmon and brown rice in Doug's life. He washes it down with a cup of coffee.

"I saw." He says. "And I'm mad. I'm mad at him for chasing after a girl who might as well have had 'bad news' tattooed on her forehead, and I'm mad at ME for giving him Hell when he was just being his usual gallant self."

He looks up at Illyana and then says, "...Well I say we are, but I'm just one vote." He looks back to what he's reading. "And I'll say she's in trouble. That was brave. Impulsive. Maybe a little dumb. But brave. The other problem is, associating with Sam risks outing him. And us. And his family. And the school."

"And I don't think she understands how bad this is... her parents have ties to some very ugly hate groups. And she was the face of their human supremacy world tour... which is now in ashes. Whoops."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Antimutant father, talented daughter, Guthrie mutant. Equals trouble." One by one Illyana ticks off the math in her hand, at least aloud. She stands off of Doug's right arm, separated by a healthy distance but still fully within his reach if he tries to snag her by the hem or wrist. The glistening metal and ribbon-wrapped wood at her side awaits to be drawn, as need be, defending against rain or blustery old men grumpy about mutants.

Being a mutant, a sorceress, and a demon (not in that order necessarily) gives certain advantages.

"She is older than eighteen? Have Sam text her, she is gone in a New York minute." Illyana knows /slang/! Or she listened to too much Don Henley. Shocking pop culture update at 11. She takes another long sip of the coffee, sizing up Roberto from toe to head and down again. Impassive statues on the Erechtheon at the Parthenon have more expression. "I miss anything else?" She looks down at Doug with a sharpened gaze glimmering with chips of Arctic floe-ice, or the heart of a glacier. "Takes one to know one."

Proof this Illyana has eaten a chunk of Doug's soul in the meantime is right there. "Mm. Harder, then. Cannot destroy her reputation too easily. It will need to be concerted propaganda."

Roberto da Costa has posed:
"Oh wait you met this girl already?" Roberto asks Doug. Clearly Roberto was falling down on his best friend duties. The gallant part clicks. "I'm guessing you were there for the rescue then? I saw the video."

Then the brazilian nods, "Yeah, dumb's the word, and brave, and dumb? we talked to her after the memorial and she thinks that somehow, her dad doesn't know what she did and she can safely do his big gala this weekend, I tried to talk her into crashing at my parents place in the city, but no dice?" he shakes his head.

He turns to Illy then, "Seventeen, turns eighteen in like eight days, dated a friend of a friend of hers who has her on Facebook," he explains. "Even so, I think we need to get her out of here sooner than that, not here, of course, because that's dumb but somewhere safe."

As to the couple status, he just shakes his head, "I'm going to take that as a yes, Illy and just declare victory, ps you're in charge of team security now, /nobody/ is getting secrets out of you."

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
"Well this isn't about me, beautiful. Sam didn't even really make a mistake, except for his usual desire to impress--" Doug rolls his eyes, "Yes, well, this is about Sam's chivalry, beautiful, not mine. And again, we've *all* been there. The problem is, I can see the desire to pitch woo written all over his face, and THAT-- is something we're going to have to deal with." Doug sits, with his hand on his chin.

"I can create a new identity for her that'd fool any government database. That's easy. Parents? Parents are harder. I SUPPOSE we could just have Jean or Betsy... make him go away. Daughter? What daughter? Heavy-handed, I'd say. But what other recourse do we have? Blackmail? This dude's already an out and out bigot whose Face is in ruins." He taps his chin with one finger.

"No, I was on the internet about five seconds after the rally finding out everything I could about her. Which -- is as much as she knows about herself, possibly more." Doug sighs. "Gala?"

"...Black or white tie?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Best friend duties, how scary. Rescue teams without the team teleporter? Even more exciting. The petite blonde puts her hand to the inset of her waist, listening attentively while subconsciously thumbing the ovoid guard on the katana. If it's the real thing or just the edge-lord umbrella of the day, hard to tell, though she certainly might treat it like the real thing. No beignet crosses her lips, only the coffee. Black as night, black as hell, that brew goes down with a blissful measure.

"Nyet. Wait the week unless she is in mortal danger." Simple language, but there's a reason to this. Who better to know legal protocol than a /literal demon queen?/ "Police can force her return at seventeen. At eighteen she has her majority. They cannot force it. Will probably not, too ugly socially." Her lips form a grim line, darkened by the shadows brewing in those nigh-colourless eyes. Funny how they can express so little and so much at once. "Take her out of New York, you now have charges about crossing state lines. Easy to brew up ugly stories. Wait. It hurts, but there is so much less protection then. She needs a lawyer. Cadre of them to cover the trail. Or."

They won't like that or. No, they will not. "She sits in Hell for a week. Her twin carries on with her routine. The only one to tell them apart won't be him. And it won't be a matter of a mutant, da? Clear conscience."

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto taps his phone a few times and brings up the details of the gala, "Definitely black tie. Tickets start at $3,500 each to hang out with the stars showing up, the who's who of celebrity mutant haters," he says with as much disgust as can be managed, "Alexis, or rather Allegra is headlining. If you're thinking what I'm thinking and we're going to go, we might need some of your computer wizardry to get tickets, no way am I giving over ten grand to Pro-HUMANA."

Roberto turns to consider Illy as she pokes holes in the plan to get Alexis gone. All of them were good points, though her counter-proposal? That made Roberto grin, "Now that's a plan."

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
Doug sits deep in thought on that. Finally he says, "Generally the fewer moving parts a plan has, the better. But..." he gestures, "This is an unusual situation."

He glances up at Illyana, and says, "And in a week daddy watches his darling princess dissolve into ichor and invariably makes the leap of logic - far, however correct - and blames mutantkind for it?"

"Plus, there's a factor here we're not considering. She might not want to go. She might think she can play this game." He sits back in his hair. "Remember when we were full of childish notions like that the world was fair--" He looks up at Illyana and says, "...Well, okay. You were seven when you learned that wasn't true."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Three thousand dollar tickets. Cheaper than the White House, at least, though not necessarily desirable. Her expression barely changes when Roberto explains how much the fundraiser is, her frost-fire gaze unchanged, brows lifted a fraction of a centimeter beneath the heavy golden spun fringe of her bangs. She swirls a fingertip around the long, trailing strands that hang past her waist. She presses her lips together in a slight tip of a smirk.

She doesn't complain at all, that said, leaning over to lightly rest the tip of her chin atop Doug's head. He happens to be there, and it's convenient. Right? Right.

"I would swap them back. Dissolve? That's an amateur." Her nose wrinkles with disgust. No words otherwise are present, and she doesn't say a word. "She gets a say. I would do none of this without her."

Roberto da Costa has posed:
"Every plan's going to have problems Doug, I mean if we wanted the plan with the least problems for us, it's locking Sam up in the mansion and letting Alexis' dad deal with her, but I know none of us want that. The trick is picking the one with the least, and right now that's Illy's," he says nodding when she mentions switching back before the spell fades and ruins the Caradenza's carpet and hands daddy Caradenza a PR coup.

"As for Alexis, Allegra.. Alexgra, you're right there Doug, she's not on board with bailing until after this gala business which is why I am thinking of crashing, I know we won't be able to do much without outing ourselves, but gotta do something, right? Either way sort of counting on Sam to get her to change her mind."

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
"Well. We just have to not get caught." Doug says. "Everybody knows somebody, but nobody knows everybody." he takes out his phone, and holds it up. "I've already got an identity prepared just in case." An up and coming investment genius who's big into the Human Supremacy movement and active on social media. "I use a bot." Doug says, "And just thinking abaout it makes me feel dirty. Once I'm done with this identity I'm donating the money he's made from investments to the school."

Then he says, "Illyana will be my plus one. She's icy, she's beautiful, she's Russian, far right trolls will *adore her*, no offense Illyana." He looks up at her where she has her chin on his head and gives a little smile, and then he says, "And you... well... you can finagle an invitation just about anywhere. You might bring Kitty, she's good at infiltration. As for Sam--" Doug pauses. "...What the heck do we do about Sam."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Perfect Aryan," hisses the sorceress with a sibilant hiss of air through clenched teeth, nipping off the syllable. She hovers gracefully enough upon her toes, still mildly bent over to crown Doug unless he moves too far out of range or abruptly sits up, knocking her out in the process because pain is pain, no matter who or what you are. Her slanting gaze measures the demise of ideas and plans, and she says, "Diversion tactics. Sit at home with my brother, do art."

Piotr, the paperweight of the X-men, giving hugs and dispensing wisdom. "He stays out. Too much risk. Someone stepping in at the wrong time will end it. Forgive me but he sucks at the dirty work." She looks down at her hands, parallel to Doug's chest more or less, then over to Roberto. "You have the wetwork squad, da? If it comes to it, I can fix things." A roll of her shoulders, clean and Russian, when what she is suggesting is not. "We should maybe tell Logan. He has good direct plans."

Roberto da Costa has posed:
"Of course you do," Roberto says with a smirk and a roll of his eyes. "And yeah, might want to throw in a Lysol bath after too," though the ID was definitely handy for their purposes. "Yeah, except for the whole Slavic thing," Roberto agrees with Illyana on the Aryan bit. "But who said bigots had to make sense."

"Yeah, Kitty makes sense," he says as they start talking team. "And Logan could be a big help with planning and might not narc on us to the staff either," he says, he doubted if they went to Scott or Jean they'd give the okay to crash the Pro-HUMANA gala. "As for Sam, he's my best friend, but you're right, he's a liability on this one, so yeah, if we can sit Piotr on him for the night that might be our best move. He can give Alexgra all the snuggles and heart emojis he likes once she's safe."

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
"Well, he's going to be furious. But all right, we have a plan."

Doug rests his chin in his hand. "As for your money - well - we'll deal with that when the time comes. In the grand scheme of things it's not so much. But hopefully this WON'T end in a fight with a squad of Purifiers, though there are going to be some big names at that soiree. People with connections. This is a big networking night for some very well-heeled bigots."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Trust exercise. He trusts us to get this girl out, we trust him to not rush in like a wrecking ball." Or, you know, the obvious cannonball of dubious description. She shrugs. "Tell him it is my plan. He can be angry at me." Her chin rests thoughtfully atop Doug a moment longer and then she straightens up. Her endurance isn't endless, after all. Time for her to take another mouthful of coffee, though she doesn't have very much to work with, having downed most of it.

"Tell me about Pro-HUMANA. Where are they invested? What do they care about most? They would fight in the street or is it all money, power, no actual fuss?" Too many words, but they're mostly sent Roberto's way. Her fingertips slide along the edge of the cup. Not quite making a squeaky noise, but enough. "Someone tell the media they are making light of a catastrophe. Burn the goodwill and credit. To be seen as heartless, it is less than human. Reputation isn't cheap but it is lost fast. Can you do anything like that?" she asks Doug.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
"Yeah, he'll be furious, but he'll have a live girlfriend rather than a dead one, so he'll forgive us, eventually," Roberto reasons before he turns and grimly shakes his head to Illyana. "Nah, I'll take the hit on the plan, your plan, but I made the call." He gives it all a shrug. Leadership right? No wonder Scott was so grumpy all the time.

Roberto, smirks faintly at Illyana resting her chin on Doug, before blinking and coming back to the subject at hand. "Oh, Pro-HUMANA the membership are all celebrities, artists that sort of thing, but they've got ties to the usual suspects of haters, Friends of Humanity, Purifiers etc, etc. Has the potential to get messy depending on who shows up."

That's when Roberto's phone pings with a notification, he looks at the device and frowns curiously, "Going to have to take this, but if you guys do find a way to take their popularity down a peg, let me know." Then Roberto starts getting up in preparation for a quick departure.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
Doug says, "I'm still doing a deep dive into their finances. But it's your usual array of moneyed 'celebrities' - musicians and artists and writers without any real talent who're mad about someone else getting all the awards, that sort of thing. They're the 'pretty face' on an ugly movement. But everyone has skeletons in their closets, these people even moreso."

"...He's a helper. He'll insist on helping. But in this case, yeah... better to ask forgiveness than permission. But uh, Berto?" He looks up, "Illyana's right, put someone on him to head him off at the pass when he tries to do something on his own?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Off goes Roberto, and Illyana is left to stand in front of the unknown. Well, her part of the plan is pretty clear. "Prepare simulacrum, have someone ready to walk the walk, and exit her out. What am I missing?" It is more for Doug's sake than her own than she asks, though she trails her fingertips across the cup and then spins. A toss and in it goes to the trash, scoring a wiggle of a bag and someone probably yelling at her later about bringing drinks into the library. Ha!

"Call his sisters up. Tell him something important at home needs him." The sorceress screws up her nose, wrinkled lightly as though to say she isn't party to making that distraction happen. "I will not put him to sleep. Someone else figures it out." He will hate them enough, possibly, if it goes wrong. On the other hand, what's life without a little spice? The beignet box calls her name and she dips her hand in, pulling out a sugar-coated bomb. Eyeing it, she takes an unhappy bite, grim and dour as a girl with a katana-umbrella ought to be. Glowering, she holds out her undusted hand to Doug, not for a shake but more inclined to pull him up. "Let's go."

Go where doesn't matter.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
Doug sighs, and gets up - and promptly steals the rest of the beignet Illyana took a bite out of. He puts it in his mouth and eats it in front of her. "Mmmf. Foo."

He shakes his head. "He's already planning to get in there, I'm sure. This is going to require someone more active to wrangle him. I'll see who's available." He slips an arm around Illyana's waist. "What, you don't like the library?"