ROGUES GALLERY - Issue #3: Maché Kills (Flaze & Mitsune Haku)

[Master Mew]

The villain Jack Kampfer has embarked on a deadly seven-murder killing spree, in an attempt to complete an obscure ritual to open a gateway to Hell itself! And where else but in the heart of Sin City itself, Las Vegas!

Will Sharpedge be able to stop Jack in time, or will carnage reign supreme?

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

((Apologies for my tardiness. My keyboard gave out last night.))

Clad in nothing more than a pair of jeans, Jack gazed at the panorama of Las Vegas from the balcony of his hotel room. It was early morning. The sun was just rising. Jack was a man of simple pleasures. Before the incident that had gained his powers, he'd been extremely materialistic. He'd craved money to buy new furniture or art. But he'd come to appreciate the simpler things.

As the cigarette clenched between his lips burned down, he snubbed it on the railing, dropping it in the ash tray. Cricking his neck, he returned to his room. His bed has not been slept in. There was, however, a strange lump under it. That would be the corpse of the young man who had come to give him his wakeup call. Jack had killed him, then planted a single drop of his blood on the corpse. He supposed it was no longer a corpse, really. He could sense its presence. The young man's skin, once unblemished, a deep peach color, was now black, as if he had been burnt alive. His lips pulled back in a perpetual grimace, unable to close his yellowing eyelids. He was now a preta. Jack had given him one order: To wait, and in one hour, to leave the room and attempt to infect as many people as possible. There was a small pool of black blood forming beneath the bed already. He wondered how far his plague would go.

But that wasn't why he was in Vegas. Jack had kept his true intent hidden, but the gist of it was in the open letter he had written to Sharpedge.

Dear Mr. Sharpedge,

You likely don't know me. My name is Jack Kampfer. I am responsible for seventeen murders. I will be in Las Vegas between the week of August 24th through the 31st. A vacation.

Ah, but I'll need entertainment, will I not? I want to play a game. My goal will be to kill seven people. I will choose the targets. It is your job to stop me. Before I attempt to murder someone, I shall give you a clue as to whom they are.

If I kill all of my targets before the week is up, I win.

If I fail, I lose.

It's in your best interest if I lose. But ah, it wouldn't be any fun if I told you why, now would it?

Love, Jack Kampfer

The note had come with a package containing a human head, the eyes gouged out, the mouth sewn shut, and the ears with knives stuck in them. Part of it was because he wanted Sharpedge to know he was serious. The rest was simply because it amused him. It had also contained a ticket to Las Vegas, and the first clue: A picture of his first target. A girl, about college age. It was somewhat blurry, a picture taken from the street. On the back was a name: Clarissa Stephens. She was a concubine. A streetwalker. He pitied her. Truly, he did. Like him, he imagined she was a victim of circumstance. He seriously doubted that as a kid, when the teacher had asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she'd say "I want to be a cheap whore who lives in a shitty hotel!"

Clarissa was living in the room on the third floor. He was on the second, roughly 100 feet away from her. Plenty of time. Jack went to the fridge and took out a jug of milk, pouring it over a bowl of cereal. He didn't need to eat any more, but he enjoyed it, and he had plenty of time.

 

[Flaze]

Sharpedge was not exactly pleased with Jack's invitation once he got it. For once he had no idea how someone had sent him a pacakge while he was on the road, something that made him extremely weary of his surroundings. Second he didn't understand why he would be picked and who exactly this person was but he knew that he was merely being used as a piece for his game.

Nevertheless this was the type of thing that Sharpedge wanted from the moment he had left his house, to see what other people with abilities like his did, to find more powers and stop villains like the heroes he had adored in his youth. Of course this wasn't comic books or movies, though he was sure that the general basis for this guy's plan was something he had seen in a movie before.

In fact that was something he used as a basis for this as he looked at the blurry picture he had received. "Clarissa Stephens huh?" he wondered to himself curiously.

He had spent all the time during this trip to Las Vegas looking up the name Clarissa Stephens on his phone, he had also used his basis of the movie he had seen when he was younger as well as what he could detail of the woman's clothes and surrounding to pick out that she wasn't exactly in the fairest of business. "The clothes seem like those of a prostitute in a way, they're not street like but they're also not fancy I would say," Sharpedge pointed out as he scratched his chin and ignored the kicks coming from the person sitting behind him on the plane, even though they were throwing him out of focus.

Luckily and strangely enough Sharpedge was able to find not just a facebook but a twitter page for the Clarissa Stephens that had been sent to him, she didn't say what she did but she had pointed out the place she worked and that was all Sharpedge needed.

He arrived at the hotel at the crack of dawn and let out a loud yawn before looking into his wallet. Being in his late teens and travelling constantly was a bit of a painw hen it came to saving money but he figured he could always pick up more later.

He walked over towards the receptionist, trying to be as polite as he could. "Excuse me um...I'm looking for an employee, her name is Clarissa Stephen," Sharpedge stated, though the clerk didn't seem pleased or willing to answer to him.

"I'm sorry but Ms. Stephen isn't here right now,' the clerk pointed out with a feign smile.

Sharpedge frowned for a moment before smirking to himself. He pulled out a one dollar bill from his wallet and without letting the clerk see it changed its design to a 100 dollar bill before sliding it to the clerk.

The clerk stood speechless, his eyes gazing from the bill to Sharpedge and then back, though the teen just snickered as he waited for the clerk to respond. "Um...she's on the second floor room -blank-' he replied as he looked at the bill in amazement.

"Good, I'm glad we could get to an understanding sir,' Sharpedge bowed politely. He was about to walk off before he turned back to the clerk in curiosity. "On that note, is there a Jack Kampfer staying in this hotel right now?" he figured that if Jack was aiming to kill Clarisse then he would surely be around and he probably would want to aim to kill her as early as possible.

The clerk didn't reply, instead he looked around and whistled innocently as he stretched his hand out to Sharpedge, who proceeded to groan in annoyance before changing the design of another bill. He didn't care, they would revert back to one dollar bills after he had gotten far enough from them anyways.

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

Jack placed the bowl into the sink, stretching as he checked himself in the mirror. He looked like a Greek statue. He was classically handsome, with masculine features, and his muscles were perfectly defined. He was perfect. Too perfect. Jack was unnerving in his beauty. He sighed, lamenting his increasing divorce from his humanity, but shrugged as he headed for the balcony again. Even if he still had his mortal, he was planning on killing a woman in cold blood. This way, at least his outside was as inhuman as his inside.

Jack pressed the sliding glass door, and a webbing of cracks spread across it. The glass reformed, turning into blades extending from his fingers. Each one was easily over a foot long. He stepped onto the railing, then jammed one of the claws into the brick wall of the building. It slid in. He raised his hand, piercing the wall with his other claw. He began to scale the wall of the building, and in a few seconds, he found himself on the balcony of Clarissa's room. The sun was still low in the sky. It was only seven in the morning, and he lights were off. He tapped the door of her balcony, and the glass silently folded open. Jack quietly padded over to her bed. She lay asleep, sprawled on her bed. Jack took a seat next to her.

"Good morning, sunshine." Jack said, as he trailed one of his claws along her face. Clarissa whimpered in her sleep. Her eyes fluttered open, and she screamed. She screamed even louder when Jack jammed one of his claws into her shoulder. It pierced her tendon, and she gurgled in pain as she was pinned to the bed. Jack stuck out his tongue, his long, forked tongue, and ran it along the blade, smearing the edge of it with his blackened blood.

 

[Flaze]

Just as the black liquid began to ooze out from Jack's tongue a small napkin flew at it and wrapped itself around his tongue before its texture hardened and tightened around it to make sure to keep it back. "I'm not sure what that does but I won't let you do it," Came Sharpedge's voice from the doorway. He had cut the door in half as soon as he had heared the first screamed and decided to act quickly.

He raised both of his hands, showcasing ten paper airplanes that he proceeded to fire at Jack, the airplanes in turn homed in on him so that they could follow wherever he moved.

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

Jack plunged the claws into the girl's neck. All four of them. Her jugular was slashed, her windpipe mutilated. It would be nearly impossible for her to live. Even if the bleeding could be stopped, that would simply mean that she'd die from not getting enough blood to her brain instead of bleeding out. The saliva from Jack's tongue soaked the paper, weakening it, allowing him to scrape it off with his teeth as he got off of the bed. His hand went to the screen door of the balcony, and the panel of glass detached, shattering and reforming into a large shield, which he used to block the paper.

"Quite the response time. Kudos." Jack said. The glass began to take itself apart, forming into a mass of shards chained together by Jack's fel magic. It bound the airplanes to it, trapping them. It was taking most of his focus, however.

"I'm impressed. You're better with your element than I am." Jack said. The mass of shards had encompassed the paper, and he dropped it to the floor. He began to back up, stepping towards the railing of the balcony. "I don't think I can beat you if we fight fair, can I?" Jack pressed a finger to his chin, as he found himself pressed against the iron railing.

"But I don't need to. Let's play pirates." Jack said. "You can be Peter Pan. I'll be Captain Hook. Tinker Bell's bleeding out. Do you think you can save the others?" He took a seat on the railing. He was balanced, but just barely. One push would send him falling three stories.

 

[Flaze]

Sharpedge gritted his teeth as he saw Jack slash the woman. He had moved as fast as he could but the guy was still able to slash her and she was now bleeding quite a lot. He looked at her for a moment as he clenched his fist and tugged onto his back. "I never liked Peter pan," he said with a light grin before throwing his arms froward, causing all of he paper in his bag to come out and gather together, taking the form of a large paper golem that proceeded to throw a punch at Jack.

Hethen turned to the woman and quickly opened one of his bags pockets, taking out multiple rolls of bandges before controlling them and having them tie around her neck tightly enough to stop the blood. "What's going on here!?" he yelled the man from the counter yell as he walked into the room and noticed the other hotel guests had also woken up.

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

As the golem ran at Jack and launched a punch at him, Jack made no move to stop it. The fist hit him, sending him teetering over the ledge, falling three stories. A normal person would be killed.

Jack wasn't a normal person.

He felt himself hit the street below with a loud thud. He'd be bruised, but he had no bones to break. "I'll be seeing you. Good luck saving her." Jack said. He saw an ambulance. Whether it was for the woman, or someone else, Jack didn't know. He pointed a finger, and one of the large shards of glass he had stuck to his finger flew at the tire, popping it. The ambulance screeched, crashing into the car next to it, as Jack walked away.

Meanwhile, in the hotel room, the woman was still bleeding profusely. Jack had slashed her jugular. Massive amounts of blood were coming out of it. She also had a massive hole in her windpipe. She was not only in danger of dying of bleeding out, but also drowning in her own blood.

 

[Master Mew]

OOC: @Flaze: Still around?

 

[Flaze]

Sharpedge gritted his teeth in annoyance. He had made sure to arrive there as soon as possible, even when he had finally fun the place where Jack was he felt glad that he at least had found a lead, and yet he had failed. He quickly ran out of the room, though not before asking the clerk where Jack had stayed in.

He walked into the room Jack had been in, making sure to search for any sign of where he could be heading to next. Sharpedge sighed, realizing that there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. That's when he turned towards the bed, he had seen in movies and tv shows before that criminals sometimes hid things under the bed so he made sure to check under it, only to find nothing.

He then lifted the mattress just in case and jumped back in shock as he saw what looked like a corpse under the bed. "What the fuck?" he asked to himself as he saw people looking into the room. He scanned the corpse carefully befre grabbing multiple sheets of paper and controlling them so as to shape them into knives made out of paper. After that he raised his arms and fired the knives over every part of the corpses or at least parts where he thought a brain, heart or any other organ would be.

He wasn't sure if the corpse was alive or not, he was probably being paranoic, but he figured that if Jack could use something akni to real magic then putting necromancy away from the list probably wouldn't be a good choice. "I hope that's everything," Sharpedge said with a sigh, making sure to keep in mind any other possible abilities he could have for next time.

OOC: Sorry this took so long >-< anyways I think we can go over to the next day

 

[Master Mew]

@Heroic Sociopath: Your turn...

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

Jack had spent the night hiding in a back alley. He know the police would be looking for him, so that ruled out any hotels. It was fine. It was a warm night. He had survived far worse. He didn't need to sleep. That was something humans did. He simply waited. A homeless man had passed by the dumpster Jack was sleeping next to, and Jack had murdered him, creating a preta from the corpse. The rest of the night, he simply sat, planning his next move. The glass he had collected formed into a large crystal, which sat in his lap. The homeless man had a bottle of beer, and Jack drank it.

Jack began to move at sunrise, the next day. He had purchased a map of the city, and with its help, he entered the sewers. It took him a while, but he eventually navigated to a manhole behind the Treasure Island Casino, a massive building. The desert sunset reflected off of the myriad windows of the 36 story building. Jack wondered how he was going to sneak in. Clearly, he needed a certain degree of stealth for-

Jack couldn't help but chuckle as he thought that. Nah, too much trouble. Jack climbed out of the manhole, followed by the Preta he had made from the homeless man. People who weren't disturbed by the gross man covered in trash and gross sewer water were horrified by the preta, running, screaming. Jack just laughed. He held the bottle aloft, and it broke in his hand, the shards flecked with his blood. He sent them flying, stabbing as many people as possible in a blizzard of razor-sharp glass shards.

"Ah, Sharp, are you here? I wonder if my hint was enough." He called out.

 

[Flaze]

OOC: Did he give out a hint? I didn't see it o.o

"Well looks like I was right!" Sharpedge called out from the entrance to the Treasure Island Casino right in front of Jack. He had surrounded himself in paper and had made its texture hard as metal in order to turn it into a sort of white armor all around his body but his face. He glared towards Jack as he looked at the people that had been hit by the glass shards. "I figured you'd come here, this place is one of the biggest casinos in Vegas, it offers great food and the hotel itself is so accomodating and luxurious that it brings up a lot of famous people of different kinds to rest, that easily eliminates Greed, Gluttony, Sloth and Pride at least in my book," he pointed out before turning to glare at Jack once more. "How do you kill those things though? I just randomly slashed the one you left at the hotel yesterdy and it seemed to work."

 

[Master Mew]

@Flaze & @Heroic Sociopath: Are you guys still up for this? I have no problems with a relaxed pace, as long as I know you're both still on board.

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

((Ah, sorry, I keep meaning to post in this and forgetting. And Haze, it was the Peter Pan line. As far as I know, Treasure Island is the only pirate-themed casino in Vegas, or at least the most prominent. That said, I'm afraid I must confess, I have no clue if the man who runs it is affiliated with organized crime.))

"Why would I tell you?" Jack said, taking out a matchbook. Then he remembered he had gotten to the casino through the sewers. He tossed it over his shoulder, shrugging. He was headed for the head of the casino. The man had yakuza ties, and was probably somewhere in the casino itself. Probably well guarded, too. The odds in the casino were stacked against the guests, even by Vegas standards. A perfect target for Greed.

"But I'll let you in on a secret. That thing you killed? - by the way, I call them pretas - I wanted you to." Jack said. "That's what happens to people at the end of the disease called Morbus. The bacteria hijacks their body, and every second, they're aware of what they're doing." As he spoke, the crystal of glass he held in one hand shattered, forming into a gigantic sword, easily five feet long. He ran his finger along it, coating the edge in his blood.

"And me? Sharpedge." Jack said. One of the people he was pursuing had been hit in the leg, making them unable to run due to the pain. Jack stabbed the man through the spine, impaling him. "Baby, I'm patient zero. Every one of the people I just hit? They've been infected. In a few days, everyone will be my pawns." Even as he spoke, the skin of the man he had stabbed was undergoing rapid necrosis, becoming black and flaky. "I hope you were careful when you got rid of the preta I left. It's highly contagious."

 

[Flaze]

"Yeah I made sure to clean the place up," Sharpedge pointed out as he tried not to grimace when he saw Jack turning a random bypasser into one of his zombie ripoff things. He took a fighting stance as he stood in front of him. "You know, let's just get done with this game, I already know you're a lunatic."

 

[Heroic Sociopath]

"Hey, name calling!" Jack said. Lines appeared along the sword, branching, the weapon shattering once more into many tiny pieces. Each one was smaller than a dime, but very sharp. They stuck together due to Jack's powers, forming a 10-foot long, razor-sharp whip. "I assure you, I'm completely sane. I'd argue I'm more lucid than most people." Jack lashed out with his whip, wrapping it around Sharpedge. He pulled on it with all his might, and swung the hero behind him, throwing him against a light pole.

"The world is divided into predator and prey. Wolves and sheep. I just happen to be the wolf." Jack said. With that, he took off running towards the entrance to the casino, cutting through anyone in his path.

((Using my quick-strike.))