"To quote a madman, 'If you kill him, he won't learn nothin', in death one cannot redeem ones life. Spaking sure he mends the rest of his life sucking his soy through a straw however..."

almost pure sorrow and rage flood through Blaze's features "Were those god damned corps just doing business when they murdered my family, was it just business when they killed my mentor, was it business, when they killed everyone that was important to me. WAS IT!" After a few seconds of silence, blaze seems to calm down somewhat "look, I'm sorry, this is just something about me, I cannot abide the corps, I trained and i work to pay them back, I run the shadows to become rich, and powerful enough to make a last stand and finish this. I know you don't want a loose cannon, and I'm not, I don't want to hurt the innocents, not the wage slaves, just the execs and sec people who execute those orders. I do not lust for blood just revenge, and that is not to be found here, I'm all for the abduction, and you can count on me, I promise, not to lose it or go berserk or anything like that, I'm a Leopard, not a Wolf, or Shark, I'm not going to lose it, I'm under control, and I want to be as helpful as possible."

"Just one piece of advice; when you gig the drave for the weight on your heart, be sure to dig two. Likely these guys deserve everything you can throw at them, including the kitchen sink, but if you make that call, if you sentence them to death, you become a little more like them every time. When those responsible are cold in the dirt, what will feed the rage you have become addicted to?"

Paladin nods. "I can understand where you are coming from my friend. We all choose a different path to walk in order to heal our pains. I just hope yours doesn't end up causing more pain than you started with. I will say no more and did not mean to upset or judge you."

Murrey tucks away his scanning device and looks around at the team,
"Well I haven't been able to thind any eavesdroppers. What is fere to eat in this place?"
With that said he heads into the kitchen and noses around in the fridge.

Elsewhere
The darkness echoes with the fall of water, single drops from the pipes overhead. The air tastes metallic and seems to press in on all sides. A small pool of dim light holds a single form, suspended from the floor. His body decorated with small cuts and slashes. They all look red and swollen, painful. The body is drenched in sweat. A women's voice can be heard, humming in the background.

Still quivering slightly Blaze says "Murrey when they have been buried I shall be happier for it, and any punishment, any sorrow that i must endure I accept. This is my path and I have chosen to walk down it with my eyes open and my head held high. Those who take such action against the innocents must be punished. I have taken it upon myself to help enact that justice in the way I can best. I know I'm not perfect, but I still must try."

Inclining his head towards Paladin at his comment "I thank you for your understanding, and I accept any pain that comes if it means the end of those who have caused the most pain."

At Murrey's mention of food Blaze brightens substantially, "yeah, let's get something to eat, I should be able to help cook it, what do you have," with that he walks into the Kitchen with Murrey.

There's a knock at the apartment door along with the sound of a heavy bag hitting the floor just outside.

:: Moira just shakes her head. ::

"I once lived a life supported by the corporations and those I called my friends were good honest hardworking people. There were others with less humanity that caused the worst suffering possible to come to my family. Worse than you can imagine...

:: She pauses, remembering his tirade and his claim about his own lost family and reconsiders her opinion. ::

"...or maybe you can imagine."

:: Her voice now soft with pain. ::

"I have no doubt that there are unfeeling inhuman people in control of most corporations, but your revenge needs to have a target more specific. Attacking the corporations as a whole is like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. You will kill yourself in the attempt and the ocean will never notice."

:: She lifts the heavy chest piece back off leaving just her formfit as she sets the armor on the floor next to the couch. ::

"As for food...I think I'll pass. Im not in the mood for food."

:: Turning, she pulls off the rest of the armor and slips into the bathroom in her formfit, the water from the shower drowning out the sound of her sobs. ::

The door visible shudders as it's kicked hard twice. "Open this door you slitches!" Iblis's voice carries through the door of the apartment. "Can't find the fragging knob?"

Blaze quickly hops up and opens the door "Sorry, you must be Iblis my new employer, we were kind of busy having a team the corps should all eat drek powow, come in, although it is his" at this point tilting his head toward Bakatre " home. Its good to finally see my employer, if you want information talk to them, but first allow me to introduce my self. Name's Blaze I provide magical fire support, I hope that we can find the perpetrators of the mass murder of your friends, and give them what they deserve." After Iblis comes in Blaze steps to the side and quietly turns off the trid, as well as watching his new employer.

Bakatare steps into the room as Moira rushes past, arcing a brow to the rest of the team as he buttons up the front of the Actioneer suit.

He glances over as Iblis enters, giving their employer a wry smile.

"We have questions, but you're tired, and probably still floating. Bed's in there," he cocks his thumb over his shoulder, "and we'll wake you in 6 hours. By then we'll know what the next step is, and we'll know what information we need from you."

He turns, stepping over the large duffel Iblis dragged into the room, and pours a packet of instant coffee into a cup, tossing it into a microwave.

"We've been up since yesterday, and we've got alot of work today as well. I'd suggest everyone grab a couple of hours of shuteye, and we'll discuss the situation when we're a bit more rested."

Munching on a pack of Nerps, Murrey finds his way over to his own little patch of sleeping space, after a truly unwholesome meal he beds down.

While everyone around him gets ready for some shuteye Blaze stands up "Well, I actually got a real good nights sleep last night, so I'll stay up and keep a watch out, I don't know how secure we think this locatoin is, but you really can never be too careful about things. Like you guys said, aparently its been a long night, so I'll take the watch and wake you all up in 6 hours."

Paladin looks expectantly at Iblis, waiting to see if she is going to take the offer for sleep or if she wants to get down to bussiness right away.

Iblis looks over Blaze with casual interest. "Sounds like a plan. I am all sorts of colors of fragged up right now." As she speaks she stumble over to spot on the floor away from the door, dragging her duffel with her. "Thanks for the 411 on my place. I sent some 'friends' over to clean up and look the place over again." She fishes out a sleeping bag and rolls it out. "It's like a slumber party for the criminal elite." She giggles at her own joke. "Ok kids, see ya in six." With that she flops on top of the sleeping sack and promptly begins snoring.

Three hours later

Blaze
The time passes without incident. It does give you time to look over your new employer. She looks like an elf but her body is covered with a fine, short white fur. Her current attire screams club kid. Her hair is magenta with black streaks and done up in pigtails. Her body is liberally doused with glitter and her shoes have at least a 5 inch sole, platforms all the way. She seems to sleep without a care in the world.

Her eyes pop open like an alarm clock going off. She stretches and sits up. She begins to dig into her duffel again, this time pulling out a re-inforced looking backpack. The outside has a teddy bear stitched to it and written above its head in jagged leters is the cry "SAVE ME". She release a few straps and it unfolds into what looks like a mobile decker command center. "Morning..........what the hell is your name anyway?" She looks to you for the answer.

"Name's Blaze, I provide support fire in the form of magic, its a pleasure to meet you." taking note of her skin Blaze seems poised to ask one question, then asks a different one "what's decking stuff for, you planning on helping gather the info we need?"

Iblis takes in the info as she plugs into her deck. She assembles a small satellite dish and wires it into the deck. "This is Bessy, my best friend and meal ticket. I was going to order some food, you like Thai?. Then check in with some matrix buddies about things. I wasn't planning on helping you all unless you needed but I got the impression you all had it in hand." She casually unfocuses her eyes, appearing to be interfacing with the cyberdeck. "What did you want to ask me early boy-toy?"

"just if it hurt when the Surge happened, I, don't mean any disrespect, but it has always fasinated me. And yeah Thai is great, just so long as its less than half soy, there's only so much i can handle of that, and i have no idea if we need hep or not, I'm not quite up to speed, but i think its under control, anyway, i'll let you do your thing in peace" now speaking to himself more than any one else "In fact I'm not even sure if you can hear me at all, I know in the astral I lose touch with my meat senses, I wonder how similar decking is."

"No worries. I have my sweet baby tricked out so I can still hear you." Her voice comes from the deck, through it appears a small speaker. "I have no problem answering your question. For me, it wasn't as bad. I was pretty sick for a week or so but all and all it wasn't that bad." A small screen flickers to life in the set up on the ground. "I was lucky and had some friends that got me through the worst of it." Her icon hangs in the void of the matrix. She seems to be accessing a website for a local Thai place and ordering up some food. Smaller interfaces are open around her. They look to be small tears into the fabric of the simulated reality. "I know people that had it much worse." As she speaks she pulls up a small window and images begin to stream by. They look to be medical records. Each file contains a different photo of Changlings. They all look to be severe, one even has bones growing out their skin. "The few extreme cases were bed ridden for months, assuming they survived long enough to get to a hospital."

Paladin snores loudly in the corner. ( )

Steping into the other rooms, "Hey i know it isn't 6 hours yet, but i figure they will want to breif you on what they have." Blaze begins to move about waking the others up, if they don't get up intially he will give them a slight kick, or shove till they wake up.

As your reach down to touch Paladin and nudge him, his hand snaps out and grabs yours then twists. Eyes his snap open a moment later, recognises who it is and then he lets go. He sits up and leans back against the wall.

"Alright, I'm up, whats going on?"

Rousing slowly from the wake up call, Murrey stands, smacking his lips to exorcise the taste of sleep from it.
"Jack in a biff, I need to go scrape the funk of nerps out of my mouth."
With that said, he shambles off to the bathroom, with his 'trouble kit'.
10 minutes later he returns looking slightly more presentable than before.

"What's up?"

slightly massaging his wrist Blaze addresses Murrey's question. "Iblis is up, right now she's ordering us up some Thai food, that was her call not mine, I figure you guys can breif her aobut what you've found, and we can figure out where to go from here. I understand its been less than 6- hours but it seemed to be what she needed, and we can take a nap later if you guys still need the sleep."

Paladin rises from his spot on the floor, "Sure. Just let me rinse my mouth out."

He walks into the kitchen, open the door to the fridge and pulls out a beer. Popping the top he takes a few chugs and walks back into the living room.

"Alright, who wants to start? Screw it, I guess I will."

With that, Paladin goes into telling Iblis about the night club they visited, about Adam's party, his home, and finishes up with details about the fight back at her house.

As Paladin goes over the details, Murrey brings up the relevant footage and sensor readings on his own computer.

Iblis unplugs from her deck and listens. "As far as Adam goes, don't know him. The Body Bag I know, went once for one of Madame Yin's all-you-can-eat boys buffet. She was the Ice Queen but didn't give me any hassle and even passed word out about the Looking Glass for me through her circles. Maybe Adam found out about us that way.' She looks over the data from Murrey. "Not much I can help with so far but I think Bakatare had some questions for me so maybe he knows why I'm sleeping on the floor here." The last is said with a wry smile.

The last to rise, he looks the least happy about the shortened sleep span.

"No reason to wake us up early, Blaze. Next time let us sleep, we're going to need it."

He turns to the group after attending to a quick refresh, drawing out his pocket secretary and plugging it into the 'trix terminal to display the data on the larger screen. There's a list of information, with several questions highlighted out of the paragraphs of notes.

"Not that I'm disagreeing, just currious really... but how do you know? Maybe they just hated Changlings and wanted to take out a bunch of them: a la 'Night of Rage' style? If we're gunna specify that it is happening for this reason and this reason only, I want to know why you are so sure of it."

"Well, when we find the castard what is responsible for it, we ban them the why and wherefores of it all."

"Why do I think it was focused specifically at her? Because it was for revenge. Not for hate, or random violence, which rules out the Night of Rage angle. "

His hand instinctively raises to his side and his mouth tightens slightly, "The evidence we have points to a corporate entity behind this, and as far as I know, Iblis was the only person at the rave that night that had a corporate goon squad show up at her house the next day.

Blaze almost smiles at the thought that he will get to toast some corp goons before the run finishes. "alright, so we have big bad corp goons who are behind this, do we have any idea which corp it is, this would be the part where Iblis lists her enemies, and what do we do about it, or better phrased, how many corpers do we toast before we say we're done, my vote is the entire corp, but we all know I'm 'blood thirsty' so what is the consensus from more level heads, like Iblis or Paladin"

:: Moira, sleeping in a curled up ball on the arm chair wakes only long enough to glare at Blaze irritably. ::

"Look, the only sleep I've had in the past 36 hours is a 3 hour nap. Those of us who aren't jacked up on bioware need a bit more than that to function. You can fill her in while I sleep. Don't wake me unless there are men with assualt rifles coming through the front door."

:: With that, she buries her nose back into her arm and rhythmic breathing insues. ::

"Well, aren't we all friendly and full of cuddles." Iblis's voice comes out laced with sarcasm. "As for my resume, I work for me. No corp has ever tried to make me drone #2345." She leans back against the wall. "As for my backer for the Looking Glass, its a Changling woman by the name of the Red Queen." Her hand extends and she makes a beckoning motion to Bakatare. "Bring it on little man, what can I answer next?"

He arches a brow, her reply unexpected.

"Is the Red Queen the one providing your magical defense?"

Looking apologeticly at Moria, "sorry, just remember I had sleep so I wasn't thinking aobut how little you all had gotten, sorry. I guess I'll go sit in the corner for a while." With that Blaze moves out of everyone's way, but leaves himself in a position where he can still hear Iblis.

"Yep, she's a lady with connections as far as I can tell. She's trying to get the Changling community organized and on their collective feet."

Piping up cautiously after how people had been reacting to him blaze asks "is there any person or group of people that would be trying to get back at the Red Queen through you?"

Iblis takes a moment to ponder the question. "I have no idea. The Red Queen is rumored to be ex-corp of some flavor but got booted out when she SURGEd. She seems to have some clout still but no one, including me, knows to whom or how. I met her shortly after my old place got trashed in the mini-riots that sprung up when SURGE hit hard. I heard that someone was offering sanctuary to Changlings in the Barrens. When I got there, after dodging an angry mob or two I might add, it was a relief. There was food, shelter and medical care. She was running it all like a natural. She spoke of us needing to see this as our 'Night of Rage' and to draw strength from it. To be unified. I don't know about you but I have my furry hoop kicked once too many times for just being alive. I got it and signed on. That what's started the Looking Glass. A place to help Changlings meet others and found a niche." She seems to think over things some more. "It could be people that hate Changlings but I don't know. I ripped my way through the matrix and couldn't find much of anything. Yah, there's a bunch of fringe groups out to kill all non-humans but none of them seem to have the resources to pull this sort of thing off." She shakes her head, coming out of her memories. "But whatever, you have more questions Big Man B?"

While everyone is talking, Paladin puts a call though to his Lone Star contact via transducer.

"Does everyone at the Looking Glass know you work for the Queen? And we'll need to talk to her."

Iblis gives a dry chuckle. "You can try to make an appointment but I don't know if she'll see you all. As for the Looking Glass crowd, they know I run the show but only a few know about her being the juice behind the parties."

He arches the brow a little higher. "Any chance you could put in a good word for us? We are trying to save your hoop and her...followers. I think myself, Moira, and Paladin would be plenty."

"Yah, doing me favors left and right." Her voice slips back into its easy wit. "So the 5k a day doesn't figure in at all, heh? Since you want to be a friend and all, mind donating your cut to a worthy cause?"She locks eyes with Bakatare.

He snorts softly, "Give me a worthy cause and I'll consider it."

"Try people getting their brains getting bashed in because Mother Nature decided to play in their gene pool or better yet, a family that turns against their own because their kid grows a horn or two." Her voice goes soft and cold. "Don't pretend to be my friend, you're getting paid, plain and simple. You weren't doing anything for us until the nuyen dropped in your lap so leave the 'saving my hoop' for someone who isn't paying you to do a job." She leans foward and props her elbows on her knees. "I can check if she'll meet with you. Anything else?"

Blaze steps up, to talk, "you want part of our cut i'll give you my first three payments, that's 15k for a meeting with her. I've seen the pain caused by this sort of violence and i want to meet someone trying to organize the changlings, do we have a deal?"

Iblis seems surprised by Blaze's offer. "Bless this old husk of a heart, a runner with a soul. What will they think of next." She turns back to the data Bakatare put up. "Done and done. I'll talk to her this evening and see when you all can get together." She appears to read over the list again. "Transys Neuronet was recently retaken by Celedyr in a nasty corp war with HKB. Its now his pet company again. The Council of Princes recently lost Lofwyr from its august number." She makes a face of digust. "You folks sure seem to be lacking in the world news department. If this is all lizard biz you may want to talk to someone in the know about the scaled set."

Paladin gives Blaze a respectful nod. He was considering doing the same himself, but he uses this money to fund his own private runs to help out the little guy.